Violence against women: Darmanin announces new measures

Europe 1 with AFP 6:59 p.m., October 21, 2021

Gérald Darmanin announced on Thursday new measures to facilitate the filing of complaints for domestic violence or rape, in response to women who denounce the poor reception in police stations under the term "double punishment".

The presence of a lawyer alongside women who would like it cannot be refused to them, notably underlined the Minister of the Interior and the Minister Delegate, Marlène Schiappa, in a telegram addressed to the prefects and of which AFP was aware. .

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"A priority"

"The quality of treatment of these facts must be a priority", underline the ministers in this document, where they formulate several recommendations. Gérald Darmanin will develop these new measures during a trip this Thursday to Avignon and Carpentras. The ministers explain, in their telegram, that a "victim of a criminal offense, whatever the offense she intends to denounce, can be accompanied by her lawyer if she wishes when filing a complaint".

"This presence of the lawyer is not compulsory but can in no case be refused by the police and gendarmerie services".

This clarification is welcome, because it "should allow victims to lodge a complaint under better conditions, from the next few days", reacted Me Rachel-Flore Pardo who, with a hundred other lawyers, has mobilized in recent weeks about this question.

"This is a first step, which we welcome, but it is not enough because our fight is for this right to be expressly enshrined in the Code of Criminal Procedure", added her colleague Karen Noblinski.

Victims must be able to be received "at any time of the day or night"

The victims must also be able to be received "at any time of the day or night" in a police station or a gendarmerie if these places are open to the public and "in premises favoring confidentiality and serenity", specified to the prefects Gerald Darmanin and Marlène Schiappa. "The examination in a medico-judicial unit must be systematically considered when a victim comes forward to denounce facts of sexual abuse" and information on psychological care must be given.

It is also requested a "regular" information of the victim of the progress of the procedure, and the hierarchy to ensure the "good level of experience" of the police officers and gendarmes for "the support and the conduct of the hearings" .

Gérald Darmanin, who announced last week an experiment in taking complaints outside the walls of the police station or the gendarmerie, specifies where it will be carried out: "Vaucluse, Pas-de-Calais, Haute-Corse, Sarthe and several districts Parisians ".

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Since the end of September, testimonies on the reception of victims of domestic violence or rape have multiplied on social networks under the hashtag #DoublePeine.

Several of them questioned the central police station of Montpellier, where "we ask the victims of rape if they have enjoyed" and where "we explain to them that a person who has been drinking is necessarily consenting", had denounced the activist feminist Anna Toumazoff.

Last week, the Minister of the Interior asked the Central Director of Public Security to go to the Montpellier police station to investigate.