Opinion on the handling of complaints of domestic and sexual violence in France 2021

At the end of September 2021, the collective #DouplePeine (i.e. double penalty) was born in France, after the feminist activist Anna Toumazoff relayed on social networks testimonies criticizing the Central Police Station of Montpellier for poor handling of sexual abuse complaints. In early October, the website born from the hashtag had already shared more than 220 testimonies of victims of sexual violence reporting the unpleasant, even traumatic, treatment they have experienced from the police. The activist wrote, for example, on September 28 that, "at the Montpellier police station, rape victims are told that a person who has been drinking is necessarily consenting."

The figures behind disturbing or even humiliating questions, guilt-inducing attitudes, and refusal to take complaints seem to show that there is a structural phenomenon behind these stories. Indeed, according to the survey conducted by the collective #NousToutes in March 2021, two-thirds of female victims reported poor handling by the police when they tried to file a complaint of sexual violence.