After atweet was published at the end of September denouncing that a rape victim at the police station in Montpellier was asked if she did not enjoy it, the accusations against the French police do not cease.
Already in the spring of this year, a women's alliance had launched a survey in which victims of sexual violence were asked about their experiences with the police. Two thirds of the respondents, the majority of whom were women, stated that they had not felt taken seriously and that the police had sometimes relativised the acts to the point that the officers refused to file a complaint. Now, after the publication of the tweet, more and more stories about the police's treatment of victims of sexual violence are being published. So many that police unions and also bourgeois politicians felt compelled to react. Immediately the accusations were denied and dismissed, the young woman who posted the tweets was publicly named and threatened with legal action being taken against her. France's Interior Minister Darmain demanded that it should now also be possible for rape victims to have police officers come to their homes to receive a complaint. Given the behaviour of the police, many feminists are speaking out against this.
Already last year, there was a big feminist campaign in France (see picture), which drew attention to sexual harassment and the high femicide rate. Here, too, the focus was on the fact that women had repeatedly gone to the police, but the police ignored their concerns, which in some cases led to women being murdered.
Although these two campaigns raise important issues, they are both based on trust in the old state and ultimately only call for reform of the system and its institutions. But as it has been shown in the past, neither bourgeois politicians nor the police will ensure that women are safe. It is much more a matter of destroying the system that profits from and depends on patriarchy.
