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Crime in France


NormanH
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As the latest two events, in the Aveyron and the Savoie,  have highlighted France is not a place 'where there is no crime' as we used to read on Anglo Fora some time ago.

Some of us used to be heavily criticised for suggesting any thing else. I was even accused of hating France, and told that 'this isn't what people want to hear'

I have noticed a welcome realism here in the last couple of years and this article in the Telegraph has some sensible things to say, even if it is wrong to seem to suggest that it all comes from 'the struggle to assimilate its large immigrant population', since neither of the latest cases can be put down to that.

In my own region there have been a number of murders at village 'fêtes' and a couple of sordid affairs over the summer, mainly among the locals.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9526255/The-deadly-side-of-la-France-profonde.html

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looking at the telegraph article You cannot compare a drug gang shooting in a big city like marseille with a mystery shooting involving a british family on holiday and a french cyclist and the media say it was a green 4x4 and a motorbike that fled the scene and there was a family feud with the 2 brothers
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I have a feeling Norman that if and when the 2 terrible crimes that you cite are solved we will find that they have nothing whatsoever to do with France other than being committed on their soil, that is to say that neither the victims nor possibly the perpetrators will be French.

I do agree with what you say though, its just a gut feeling that these two are exceptions.

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On the BBC news yesterday they said that when they found the little girl she did not know if the police were "good or bad people" because she could not understand what they were saying, she said the same of the attacker(s). This would indicate that the attacker(s) were neither English or Arabic (well not for the part they come from). Other than that I guess we will have to wait as it all unfolds.
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I read in The Guardian that there are about 100 more murders per year in France than the UK, around the 850 mark. I always use to complain about our local, weekly, free newspaper in the UK and that it was full of muggings, burglaries etc. For the last five or six years I have been reading our two local papers online and to be quite honest it's much the same. The few English I do speak to tell me they don't bother to read any French newspapers nor watch French TV, both local and nationally. It seems to me that they simply are not aware of these things happening in France so they cannot happen. Even Carcassonne, so beautifully portrayed on the TV with is fireworks display hides the fact that in a particular part the Gendarmes will only enter in groups of four or more, the local sub post office and social offices have closed due to attacks on staff and that residents have to collect their mail from the main post office in the centre of town. I don't personally think for one minute that Carcassonne is any different than other big French towns or cities and I don't think France is any better or worse than other European countries.
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IF I had permission from the people concerned I could tell you about bad things that have happened in rural France. Unreported in the press when sometimes they should have been; and sadly sometimes unreported to the police because they would do NOTHING!

And believe me I actually went to see an avocat, a specialist at the court once to ask if the police would do anything about something terrible and he said no. I started crying, such was my frustration with the situation and this avocat said that France had 'great' laws and would not be influenced by anglo saxon values at which point I could have slapped him, fiche un gifle, because this man needed to get his head out of his backside and see the world in reality. I didn't hit him, the interview was over  and sent me on my way.  Believe me, it was something bad.

Crime in France, you betchya there is. Just the same as everywhere else. We were shot at in our first year in France, so were friends. We had our car broken into. We had our parked car hit, three times and no one left a message to say that they had done it. There were reports, regular ones about gangland killings, which calmed a bit eventually, as I suppose all the opposition was taken out. Friends have been burgled and my husband and both sons have been attacked in the streets. Even the Maire of Grenoble died under very 'odd' circumstances........... not what the official report said, just what people were saying. I pay little attention to 'official' reports in France, I would say that 'official' reports in most countries have some fiction in them, in France, it is my firm belief that there is far more 'fiction' in them and I treat all statistics and reports with more than a pince of sel.

France, just a country. There are good, bad and indifferent people living in it who do good, bad and indifferent things.

 

Why is this so reported? not hard to work out, these people were not french and 'gulf' connections mean that the world press get involved. And the man in charge, the waffler who couldn't remember things........... well they have a bright spark there in charge, IF in fact he is in charge and not just the front man and waffler extra ordinaire.

 

 

 

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Well, up to about 2 days ago, I truly believed that nothing very very bad occurred in my Herault backwaters - although both Beziers and Montpellier, being larger towns, have their share of crime. 

But within the space of 2 days, I hear of a series of burglaries going on in a nearby place, (some friends had left one of their doors open, they were sleeping upstairs when they were burgled), and in the next village  one disabled man of 50 was beaten up by 2 men  in his home in front of his 10-year old daughter, for 30 euros - but even worse, a local lad (probably the one who served my pizza last time I went there) has just been murdered - so far, kept hush hush, nothing in the papers yet while there is an enquiry... this was about the last place you could expect murder to happen!

A bit of a wake up call, as I had become quite complacent about "nothing ever happens here". No need to be paranoid, but "things" do happen all the time, even where nothing ever happens.[:'(]

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Perhaps many expats are not aware of what goes on where they actually live because they only watch UK tv and read British newspapers.  Why so much attention to the Aveyron affair?  As 5E and Quillan mention, this type of thing unfortunately goes on all the time.

Just two examples in our part of France, a poor old lady living on her own and a "marginal" both savagely murdered and for nothing! :

http://niort.ville.orange.fr/actu/region/meurtre-d-une-octogenaire-en-charente-un-suspect-mis-en-examen-2-mois-apres-21162.html

http://niort.ville.orange.fr/actu/region/vienne-un-mineur-ecroue-pour-le-meurtre-sauvage-d-un-marginal-21630.html

 

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I used to get berrated on that Anglo site for reminding people to lock their doors and read the papers regarding the increasing crime here and all I got was slagged off and asked why am Iiving here then. Next thing you know they are posting about their garden shed being ransacked,their wood and plants stolen, their houses broken into and being accosted by Albanians pretending to have broken down. Yes, many do live in BBC/SKY bubbles with their expat friends and never speak a word of french,read a local paper or watch french TV so they are completely ignorant that any sort of crime could actually exist here - more fool them.

Murders in the city some 40mins from us are weekly, my son has been attacked five times now since he moved there and so have many of his student friends,my neighbour tried to kill his entire family, the jealous lovers who stab or shoot their partners  locally are nothing out of the ordinary and the local town is the drugs capital of France. You don't dwell on such things in your day to day lives and just get on with things but everyone is aware of just what does go on and quite often it is dealt with at a local level by a few of the commune "elders" as such with the local gendarmes not getting involved.

This murder of the british family has more than meets the eye to it and it will probably emerge that it was a deliberate act with some very sordid or unpleasant details behind it but that remains to be seen eventually when the public are informed.

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I notice here...in yet another comparative backwater, that the latest must-have accessory is one of those little clip things that attaches a woman's handbag to the table in a restaurant or wherever. Apparently, handbag-snatching is becoming a commonplace thing.

I've got the tshirt many times over for suggesting that crime exists in rural France, but fell foul too often of the "we haven't been robbed so you're talking rubbish" brigade.
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Interesting that Montpelier came up. A couple of years back our area suffered like a few other, whenever there was a funeral people would return to their houses afterwards and find they had been burgled. Whilst it took some time they finally caught the 'Funeral Robbers' as they had become know and they all came from Montpelier.

Many years ago having driven around Toulouse for a while and not being able to find a place to park I had noticed on the way round the periphery a station for the metro. The next time we went we had our daughter with us and I decided to park near the station and we could catch the metro to the city centre. A couple f youths were skulking around and out daughter pointed them out being a 'London girl' and told Mrs 'Q' to place her bag strap across her body s opposed to hanging off the same side shoulder. Once she did this the youths walked off. I guess we had forgotten about 'being aware' but then we did not know anything about the area. Turns out this, like many other inner city areas around the world, is a place you should really avoid. Even though it looks rough your better going to Mirail where the supermarket and terminus is.

As I mentioned Carcassonne previously I know through reading where the area is so I don't go there. When you do pass through it you wouldn't really guess that the area had the sort of problems it does. They also captured seven people working in a 'bomb factory' there a few years back.

I found Iduns comments interesting. I know personally of a person in our village who attempted to rape a woman who I also know in the village. He had her cornered in a house but she managed to knee him in the crutch and run away. Apparently this has happened more than once over the years, same bloke but different women. In all cases neither the victim or the victims husband did anything, no reporting to the Gendarmes etc. I asked another person I know very well in the village about it and explained how serious this would be in the UK. The response I got was that yes it is serious but then they are women and it would be their word against his. Needless to say I was absolutely gobsmacked. Apparently hardly anyone gets done for attempted rape in France and very few women who are actually raped have the guts to follow through to prosecution because the system is so stacked against them from the start. Bit like it used to be in the UK, she had a mini skirt on and was gagging for it, yeah right. Anyway, the thing is that unless you know of somebody this type of thing happens to then you won't know and could go around thinking that rape just does not happen in France.

I don't think you need to read the French papers all the time nor always watch French TV but you should from time to time, say once or twice a week, just to keep up to speed on whats happening. Mind you if it's true what they have been saying about Sky and Freesat we will all be watch French TV next year down here as there will be no alternative.

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One thing I do set great store by, rightly or wrongly, is the " victim" mentality. By which I mean that it's fairly common to read on forums of people saying how scared or intimidated they felt walking around a particular place. As someone who has walked around plenty of places, at night or in daylight, frequently alone, where apparently I should have been quaking in my boots, I've never felt uneasy or uncomfortable, and to date I've only once been the victim of an attempted mugging. Oddly enough, it was in Paris, in the rue de la Boetie (sp) just off the Champs Élysées. as I was shouting at the biker who mounted the pavement, berating him for (I thought) accidentally knocking my bag off my shoulder, he carried on along the pavement on his motorbike and tried to steal the handbag of the woman behind me. Luckily, the bag he had tried to lift from my shoulder held a nice, weighty bottle of champagne, which practically unseated him as he wasn't expecting it. Equally luckily, it didn't break.....
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Since Quillan mentioned Toulouse, I just read that although it has not been classified as one of the "15 Top ZSP" (for some technical reason), it should be a ZSP (Zone de Sécurité Prioritaire)

The list of the 15 Top ZSP has just been revealed:  http://www.france24.com/fr/20120804-15-zones-securite-prioritaires-revelees-manuel-valls-france-zsp-delinquance I don't know much about Seine-St-Denis and even less about Cayenne, but Marseille comes high on the list. Since the beginning of the year, I think there have been 25 fatal shootings in Marseille (mostly to do with drug trafficking), as there are no-go areas - which the government seems keen to do something about - the latest is that another 205 gendarmes and various police will be deployed in Marseille, especially the northern suburb. There were even suggestions earlier, to send in the army to police the no-go areas!

I did live in inner city Marseille for a while, in the late 60's. I remember that gunshots in the night were a regular occurrence - as well as police sirens and ambulances. So, not even such a new phenomenon, it seems!

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So far I haven't been personally physically  attacked. My purse was taken on a tram in France though, and I didn't feel a thing and what is remarkable is that my bag is always bordelic and I can never find my own purse!

I have walked, prudently and imprudently lots of places on my own and no problem.

Lock all doors, always. Handbag across body, why would I put my bag in any other way? I wouldn't.

It could well be different in the cities of France, but I imagine that in the cités and deepest rural France,  then the gendarmes would take, domestic violence, rape and conjugal rape reports as being a nuisance call out. I have yet to see a domestic violence case taken in anyway seriously, especially if the man goes and has a word and implies that he was being messed around and she was asking for it. I know the laws exist, but action taken, is quite another thing isn't it?!

 

 

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In our village (commune pop 400) there was a domestic incident fairly recently which involved the Gendarmerie with 10 vehicles and a helicopter!! The village was sealed off for 3 hours. Unbelievable. We were quite unaware and didn't hear about it until the next day after the guy had been arrested. It appears that a firearm was suspected of having been brandished.

Everything was soon back to its sleepy ways.

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Apparently France has the most liberal gun ownership laws in Europe and as a result the highest number of guns in civilian ownership after Switzerland.

It is reported that the number one crime concern of French voters at the moment is the significant increase in gun related crime, due to a flood of illegally imported weapons from Eastern Europe, that has become impossible to control since Schengen was introduced.

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Sid, it would always take something exceptional to get the gendarmes to get out of their casserne. And a firearm could do that, although, I doubt it always does.

About 10 years ago I was in Chambery and on the road I was on a car going in the opposite direction was on fire. As it happened I saw to my left a Gendarmerie Nationale, and pulled in. I ran in, as I could then and  told them and they shrugged and they sent me packing, nothing to do with them, they were the gendarmes for the alpes, not the town. As far as I know they didn't even call anyone.

Have I any trust in the gendarmerie? no, not ever. Like most people I do  trust in the sapeurs pompiers.

 

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I was thinking we hadn't been the victims of crime here (a few times in the UK, and Singapore) but remembered Eddie had his passport stolen out of the car in Toulouse, back in 2002. They did catch the thief, and got his passport back, but the court hearing wasn't until last year! We were invited to attend but didn't go.

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I dont live in a UK TV bubble having not had access for several years, I watch and listen to the French news and read papers as often as I can scrounge them, something Quillan said struck home.

I cant think of one occasion in 8 years that I have heard of a reported rape or attempted rape or indecent assault let alone a prosecution.

And yet I know from my work with the prison that a lot of men are incarcerated for it so perhaps the prosecutions have some reporting restrictions? If it is seen as something to be ashamed of or to be swept under the carpet you can be sure that victims will be unwilling to come forward.

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