Vigil assaulted at the Defense: "Behind every act of insecurity, there is a victim forgotten by the State"

Pierre-Marie Sève is general delegate of

the Institute for Justice

A security guard at the "Westfield Les 4 Temps" shopping center in La Défense, Paris, was savagely attacked on Wednesday evening March 23.

The security manager is said to be in a coma.

Unfortunately, this aggression is not an isolated act.

According to INSEE's 2018 annual victimization survey, 1,101,000 French people said they had suffered physical or sexual violence.

Or 1.5% of French people each year.

Nearly all crimes are on the rise: from less violent mischief like burglaries which rose 37% between 2008 and 2019, to the most serious violence like the homicide rate which has more than doubled since 2008, according to official figures of the Ministry of the Interior.

Read alsoMaurice Berger: “The rise in violence in France is too important to be satisfied with indignant declarations”

This evolution of violence can also be put into perspective with the intrinsically high level of violence in France, compared to other European countries.

Declared violence much higher than our neighbours, the highest homicide rate per capita in Western Europe, so many unflattering indicators which logically inflate the number of victims in France.

So many attacks and violence of all kinds are so many victims.

Each year in France, at least one million people therefore experience a similar journey: the journey strewn with trials and pitfalls of a victim.

Indeed, very often, the assault or the act of violence suffered by the victim is only the beginning of a chain, more or less rapid, moreover, of traumatic encounters with the judicial institution.

First victim of an attack, then victim of a second trauma in contact with the judicial institution which shows itself very little under a human face.

Pierre-Marie Seve

As the journalist Judikael Hirel, left for dead in the metro in 2017, said in FigaroVox, what the victims experience after their attack is a real

.

We can go even further: each victim is actually a double victim.

First victim of an attack, then victim of a second trauma in contact with the judicial institution which shows itself very little under a human face.

The first step is often the filing of a complaint at the police station.

There, the victims are often left to fend for themselves, while the accused have the right to a lawyer from the start of the proceedings.

Couldn't we imagine a permanent presence of a duty lawyer in the police stations to assist the victims when filing a complaint?

Then there are the trials, where the rights of the victims are still far too inferior to the rights of the accused.

A single example: the right of appeal to the Assize Court.

This right exists for the accused but it does not exist for the victims.

Why could a right of appeal not be instituted for the victims, when the judgment is lower than the requisitions of the prosecutor?

The third stage of the victim's journey is also the aggressor's release from prison.

When he is indeed sent to prison, what a surprise for a victim to meet his attacker in the street well before his scheduled release date!

It is imperative, here, to reconsider the system of remissions of sentences, which is truly designed to encourage impunity and delinquency.

But the most important of the reforms to be carried out does not concern the rights of victims

it concerns Justice as a whole, because the first mission of Justice is to prevent crime by dissuading offenders from acting.

In this period of presidential election, while hope is allowed, who will restore a firm and effective Justice?

Who will think of the victims?

Pierre-Marie Seve

Today, and for many years, Justice no longer deters.

By a glaring lack of means (notably of prison places) and by ideological naïveté, Justice creates the famous feeling of impunity among delinquents.

And this feeling of impunity inevitably creates insecurity… itself weighing on prison resources, in an endless loop.

Ultimately, this is how the first act to take to support the victims of insecurity is to restore a firm and effective justice.

In this presidential election period, while hope is allowed, who will think of the victims?