The fear of being assaulted or the victim of a theft in public transport has increased, according to the latest victimization survey from the Paris-Region Institute.

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A. Gelebart / 20 Minutes

  • According to the latest victimization survey by the Paris-Region institute carried out among 10,500 people, the feeling of insecurity has increased throughout the region.

  • This increase is most marked in Paris: + 6.8%.

  • Seine-Saint-Denis is the department where the feeling of insecurity is strongest, but this rate has remained relatively stable since the last survey. 

Tell me where you live, I'll tell you what you're afraid of.

Every two years, the Paris-Region institute questions Ile-de-France residents about their concerns.

The study, carried out between January and February 2019 but published at the end of December, makes it possible to take the pulse of the concerns of the inhabitants.

And if many things have changed since - it was the blessed time of the pre-coronavirus - we nevertheless see that from one department to another, fears are changing.

Interview with Hélène Heurtel, head of the investigation.

According to your survey, more than one in two Ile-de-France residents (53%) say they feel insecure, which is three points more than in your previous study, in 2017. How to explain this increase?

Even if the increase is marked, we remain at a relatively low level, far from the peaks reached in 2001 when close to 70% of Ile-de-France residents did not feel safe.

Our role is not so much to look for the causes of this feeling as to follow the evolution of our fears in order to allow the best adaptation of public policies.

For example, it was found that despite the significant increase in CCTV cameras in public transport, the feeling of insecurity has not diminished.

The fear of being attacked or the victim of theft has even increased.

This therefore shows that this provision is not sufficient to reassure the populations.

Where do you feel most secure in Ile-de-France?

For the first time, the Yvelines have downgraded Paris.

Of the eight departments in Ile-de-France, it is in the capital that the feeling of insecurity increased the most strongly: this rate reached 52.2% in 2019, i.e. 6.8 points more than in 2017. This is not the case. is not an outbreak but the increase is marked: the fear of being assaulted on the bus increased by 5% (now at 15.9%), in the tram or metro by almost 4%.

Similarly, more than 57% of Parisians say they have suffered, at least once in three years, an attack targeting them or their property.

It is the department where the rate of victims among its population is the highest.

Conversely, it is in the Yvelines that the population is least afraid of going out alone at night, of being the victim of a theft or an assault in transport.

Paradoxically, you show that it is in Paris that the security concern is weakest ...

We must first understand the security concern is very volatile and depends more on current events - whether local, media ... - than on personal fears which depend on experience and environmental factors such as the presence of deserted places. nearby, the staff in transport.

So the feeling of insecurity and the security concern are not necessarily correlated.

In Paris, other social issues take precedence, starting with the fight against pollution which stands out much more than in other departments.

Survey after survey, Seine-Saint-Denis remains the department where the feeling of insecurity remains the strongest.

Are you nonetheless observing an evolution?

Since many surveys, Seine-Saint-Denis is indeed the department in which the share of the population declaring to feel insecure - nearly 58% - is the highest.

The fear when you are at home or alone at night in your neighborhood is much more marked than elsewhere.

On the other hand, and this is rather positive, there has been relative stability in the department since the last survey.

While the situation has deteriorated in almost all the other departments, with the exception of Yvelines, the feeling of insecurity in Seine-Saint-Denis is similar to what we observed during our last survey.

In Seine-et-Marne, a department that is nevertheless rather "calm", the feeling of insecurity is strong, it is shared by nearly 56% of the inhabitants.

How do you explain that this rate is among the highest in the region?

We must clearly distinguish the feeling of insecurity from the insecurity itself, we are talking about a feeling, fears.

Once again, we are not here to say why we are afraid.

On the other hand, what we can definitely observe is that the fear of being attacked or robbed in public transport is increasing significantly in Seine-et-Marne: nearly 35% of people questioned say they have such a fear when they take the RER or the metro.

By way of comparison, in Val-de-Marne, only 29% of inhabitants for the RER and 25% for the metro say they feel insecure.

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