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Four years after the #MeToo movement, French victims of gender-based violence are still struggling to obtain justice, with the police accused of failing to take their complaints seriously.
In past weeks, France has been gripped by a wave of new stories of sexual assault and harassment. Complaints this time are focussing on the way police treat women who come forward to report cases of assault or abuse.
The outpouring was triggered by an Instagram post by feminist Anna Toumazoff relating women’s experiences when reporting attacks at the main police station in the southern city of Montpellier.
Toumazoff described victims being stigmatised, humiliated and made to feel guilty by the police, two years after the government launched a major drive to train officers on handling cases of gender-based violence.
“In France, police ask rape victims if they had an orgasm,” Toumazoff tweeted, referring to the case of a 19-year-old woman who reported a rape in early September.
Toumazoff claimed rape victims were told that a person who has been drinking had “automatically consented” to sex and that they “should not destroy lives” by bringing charges against their attackers.
Montpellier police in dock
The allegations led thousands of abuse victims across France to share stories of dismissive or contemptuous treatment by police, using the hashtag “DoublePeine” (victimised twice).
The state’s representative in the Herault region where Montpellier is located threatened Toumazoff with a lawsuit for slander.
But the government of Emmanuel Macron, who has made tackling violence against women a key theme of his presidency, lent a more sympathetic ear.
Last week, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin reported that around 90,000 police officers had received training over the past two years in handling abuse cases with empathy and…
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Source : france24
