While a number of French people are preparing to take the vacation route to take advantage of the summer season, the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop) is publishing this Tuesday, July 6 a survey on their experience of burglaries and their fear of it. be victims.
The study covers the whole year, while giving a central place to summer vacation, a period conducive to break-ins.
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Produced for Internorm with a representative national sample of 1000 French people, it highlights four distinct points.
First, a growing fear of the French at the idea of leaving their home when they go on vacation.
Thus, more than two-thirds (69%) today say they are worried about their accommodation when they go on leave or on weekends, i.e. a feeling of more widespread worry than that which could be measured one time ago. fifteen years (45% in 2006 according to Ifop).
The "
holiday tranquility
" operation
To alleviate this anxiety, a security service has been implemented nationally for several years by the national and municipal police as well as by the gendarmerie for the benefit of those who are absent for a certain period: the operation "Vacation tranquility".
Holidaymakers thus ensure the surveillance of their homes, through patrols organized by the police as part of their missions.
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The beneficiaries of this service are guaranteed to be notified in the event of an anomaly - either in person or by a trusted person residing near the place of residence.
Informed, the victims and their relatives who remained on site are able to act as quickly as possible to limit the damage suffered: replacement of locks, inventory of stolen objects, contact with the insurance company ...
"It is a system. which operates all year round but which takes on its full meaning during the summer period, ”
notes Commissioner Thierry Beausse, of the national police force in Cholet (Maine-et-Loire).
“
Last year out of 170 burglary reports recorded, only one could not be avoided,
” he explains.
The phenomenon of the drop of water
Then comes the increasingly strong fear of a home invasion regardless of the summer period, with 83% of French people who fear being victims of a burglary. This is significantly more than twenty years ago, when they were 63% to share these same fears, at a time when the number of burglaries of main residences was much lower than today (170,946 in 2000 against approximately 222,000 in 2019, according to the polling institute). A worry directly correlated with the fact of having been personally burgled: the proportion of French people who regularly or occasionally fear being burgled is, for example, three times greater among those who have been robbed in the last twelve months (87%) than among those never having been a victim of this type of break-in (34%).
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Behind the fear, intervenes
"the phenomenon of the drop of water",
as explained in
Figaro
by Alain Bauer, professor of criminology at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (Cnam).
"It is about the slow deterioration of a situation which leads to the vase overflowing",
explains the criminologist.
"The level of concern does not correlate with a particular and well-identified threat but rather with the last straw."
He added that "
a legitimate concern has also settled among people who were until now part of the spared and who are now affected by burglaries, especially in rural areas
."
As a reminder, nearly a quarter of French people (23%) have already suffered a burglary of their main residence, and for more than half (14%), it is not a distant experience but a break-in experienced in the last ten years.
Finally, 2% of them report having been victims in the last twelve months, i.e. a rate quite close to that measured in the last Ifop survey
“Living environment and security”
(0.8% of households in 2018 ).
A burglary map to alert residents
In order to prevent burglaries, the Deux-Sèvres gendarmerie (79) has decided to set up an original initiative for residents. Each month, she publishes on Facebook a map of break-ins committed in the department with a color code according to the number of wrongdoings recorded (Purple = 1 fact / red = more than 5 facts).
“If burglaries are not a worrying subject as such in the department, that does not mean that it should not be interested. The map gives residents a way to see if they live near a "sensitive" area in terms of burglaries, which allows them to adapt their vigilance according to "
, explains to
Figaro
a gendarme of the Niort brigade. .
The map of the burglaries of the Deux-Sèvres gendarmerie for the month of May 2021. Facebook screenshot
Being the subject of a squatting also raises serious concerns, whether it is for your main home (56%) or for your second home (72%).
And this fear of seeing their main home squatted is not the prerogative of the rich.
The Ifop study reveals, on the contrary, that it affects the French with a standard of living less than or equal to 900 euros net / month (75%) much more than those with an income of more than 2500 euros net / month ( 56%).
"The media coverage that has been made in recent years around the squatting of second homes or rather the great difficulty in dislodging the squatters, has largely created anxiety"
, observes for his part Alain Bauer.
The climate of insecurity that is what we are experiencing lately has not been built on nothing.
The concern is legitimate and does not fall under the phenomenon of rumor
Alain Bauer, professor of criminology at the National Center for Arts and Crafts (Cnam)
Finally, it is a feeling of insecurity that seems to have won over many households in recent years.
As proof, more than one in two French people (57%) regularly or occasionally feel insecure at home.
A phenomenon which, paradoxically, affects even more those with the lowest incomes.
48% of those with a standard of living below 900 euros net / month regularly feel insecure at home, against barely 16% of the better-off.
However, this apprehension weighs heavily on the general feeling of insecurity of the French, if we judge by the heights that the latter reaches among those who, in the study, regularly feel insecure in their accommodation.
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“The climate of insecurity that we have been experiencing lately has not been built on nothing. The concern is legitimate and does not fall under the phenomenon of rumors, ”
underlines Alain Bauer. “
There are, among others, three victimization processes that contribute to the development of anxiety as it is present today. That of personal victimization, when we ourselves witness an event that could happen to us, that of collective victimization, when, for example, women are attacked in an underground car park and all the women start to fear these places, and finally that of generalized victimization, when we talk about phone theft in particular.
"
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