France targets public transport in campaign to stamp out violence against women
Rallies, marches and other ceremonies will be held across France on Saturday, to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
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It comes as French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne launches a major awareness campaign against harassment on the public transport system.
"Against the aggressors, let's raise our eyes" reads the slogan of a new campaign targeting French public transport, launched by Borne on Friday.
The awareness campaign against sexist and sexual violence on transport will last one month and cost €1 million.
"It responds to an alarming observation: almost all women, nine out of ten women, report having suffered verbal or physical attacks in public transport ... from whistling, insults, even sexual assault or even rape. This is totally unacceptable," Borne told journalists gathered at Saint-Lazare station in Paris.
The message will be displayed on 3,000 posters on metro and station walls around the capital and the Ile-de-France region, and 2,000 in the rest of the country.
La quasi-totalité des femmes a déjà subi des agressions verbales ou physiques dans les transports en commun.
— Élisabeth BORNE (@Elisabeth_Borne) November 24, 2023
Contre les agresseurs, levons les yeux. pic.twitter.com/kuBy40A3zM
'Change in mentalities'
"We need a real change in mentalities," Borne said.
"Let's not keep our eyes glued to our phones. Let's react collectively, let's raise our eyes," said the prime minister, who was accompanied by Transport Minister Clément Beaune, whose ministry initiated and funded the campaign.
Beaune was also slated to launch work on a similar campaign for the ride-share and taxi sector.
Speaking to Le Parisien daily, he called for "very firm commitments" from the industry on data sharing and driver training.
He said he also hoped that all proven acts of sexist violence would result in "exclusion and disconnection from apps immediately, as opposed to a six-month suspension under current rules".
Specialised legal teams
"Violence against women is still too often a shame. A shame that invades the victims when it should overwhelm the guilty," Borne said as she chaired a meeting with actors committed to combating violence against women.
She welcomed several measures that will come into force from 1 December, such as the payment of "emergency financial assistance" to victims of domestic violence who are forced to leave their home.
From January 2024, each of France’s 164 courts and 36 appeals courts will be equipped with teams specialising in family violence.
In 2022 French police recorded some 244,300 victims of domestic violence, the vast majority women, an increase of 15 percent in one year.
In total 118 women were murdered that year, roughly the same as in 2021.
Nationwide rallies
Several events are planned for Saturday around Paris and France, notably a ceremony conducted by Paris city hall in a street recently renamed in tribute to female victims of violence.
"Since 2014, there has been at least one femicide per year in Paris and this year there were five. We can clearly see that violence is increasing," the Paris council's equality spokeswoman Hélène Bidard told 20 Minutes newspaper on Friday.
Postcards with emergency contact numbers will be distributed in the capital over the day.
Thousands are expected to converge on the Place de la Nation for a rally organised by the feminist collective Nous Toutes.
Gatherings have also been organised in Lyon, Lille, Marseille, Nantes and Montpellier.
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