"Faced with the savagery of society, Emmanuel Macron must not forget to be the president of the victims"

Judikael Hirel is a journalist at Le Figaro.

And you, would you rather be able to fill your shopping cart or stay alive?

The choice may seem absurd, but it is nevertheless what seems to be emerging at the dawn of this new five-year term.

The "whatever the cost" is undoubtedly easier to manage than the savagery of a country... Between the war in Ukraine and the return of inflation, purchasing power is already presented as top priority for this second term.

This is "

", declared Gabriel Attal in particular.

Five minutes every five years.

This is what hundreds of thousands of victims of intentional assault and battery in France last year will therefore have to make do with in terms of interest and visibility.

It was very short, however, this sequence devoted to the question of insecurity during the debate between the two rounds between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen.

The only moment of the campaign, basically, where it would have been possible to take stock of the past five-year term.

Suffering, injuries, sometimes the death of a loved one, therefore only deserved 300 seconds per five-year term?

Between 2017 and 2021, this five-year term will have seen 1.337 million of our fellow citizens join the ranks of the invisible army of victims of intentional assault and battery, according to the figures of the Ministry of the Interior.

Judikael Hirel

Insecurity is not a simple feeling… It also invariably emerges among the main concerns of the French people on a daily basis.

The word "savagery" now tends to be banal, as certain attacks are astounding by their degree of violence and their total gratuitousness.

When did the moral sense suddenly evaporate among some of our fellow citizens?

There is not a day without violent aggression, without demonstration of gratuitous hatred, without women attacked, raped, injured, in the streets as in public transport.

Between 2017 and 2021, this five-year term will have seen 1.337 million of our fellow citizens join the ranks of the invisible army of victims of intentional assault and battery, according to the figures of the Ministry of the Interior.

It's huge, as Fabrice Luchini would say.

Among them,

573,400 were outside the scope of domestic violence, which has also risen sharply in recent years.

According to figures from the statistical service of the Ministry of the Interior (SSMSI), the number of victims of intentional assault and battery rose from 233,600 in 2017 to 306,700 in 2021, an increase of 31.29%.

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Overall, intentional assaults have indeed increased by a third since 2017. And again, these statistics only reflect the facts known to the police and the courts: how many French people simply give up filing a complaint, believing that this does not would be useless?

What is the black figure of insecurity in France?

It is undoubtedly much higher.

If we go back in time, intentional assault and battery in France have increased by 142% since the year 2000. In other words, a French person is more than twice as likely to be attacked in 2022 than in 2000. But are we talking about simple thefts, more traumatic than violent?

Beyond the fact that this excuses nothing, and that the trauma remains just as much, the facts are also increasingly serious, and numerous.

According to the report on crime in France in 2021, released at the end of January 2022 by the Ministry of the Interior, there were 4,386 homicides and attempted homicides in France in 2021, compared to 4,472 in 2020 and 4,209 in 2019. Either a homicide or one attempt every two hours in France.

In our country, the rate of

homicide (indicator measuring the number of people killed and the number of people who came within a hair's breadth of being killed) more than doubled between 2008 and 2020. The comparison with our European neighbors is not more reassuring: in 2020, we recorded 863 homicides in France.

A figure quite close to Germany (782), but three times higher than in Spain (298) or Italy (285).

How can such differences be explained for an almost comparable population?

Breaking the thermometer does not solve anything, the Ministry of the Interior having recently abolished the National Observatory of Delinquency and Penal Responses, the ONDRP.

863 homicides have been recorded in France.

A figure quite close to Germany (782), but three times higher than in Spain (298) or Italy (285).

How can such differences be explained for an almost comparable population?

Breaking the thermometer does not solve anything, the Ministry of the Interior having recently abolished the National Observatory of Delinquency and Penal Responses, the ONDRP.

863 homicides have been recorded in France.

A figure quite close to Germany (782), but three times higher than in Spain (298) or Italy (285).

How can such differences be explained for an almost comparable population?

Breaking the thermometer does not solve anything, the Ministry of the Interior having recently abolished the National Observatory of Delinquency and Penal Responses, the ONDRP.

67% of French people say they "no longer recognize themselves in the values ​​of French society", according to the results of the latest barometer of political trust.

Judikael Hirel

Faced with a savagery of society that is impossible to hide, with a loss of values ​​and moral sense, it is perhaps still not too late to react.

It may not yet be too late to reassure and protect the French.

Today 67% of them say "no longer recognize themselves in the values ​​of French society", according to the results of the latest barometer of political confidence.

Three-quarters of them believe that “our country has lost its moral compass”.

They are 68% to believe that, "rather than granting new rights, what our country needs is a good dose of authority and order".

Will they be heard?

It is a fact: within families as in the streets or transport, violence seems to be omnipresent in France today.

If we are satisfied with the figures for 2018, there was indeed an attack every 44 seconds, night and day, and a physical or sexual attack every 29 seconds.

What about these victims, more numerous every year.

They remain invisible, because solitary, each imprisoned in its own history.

Victims who, very often, for lack of means for justice, have to wait for years before benefiting from judicial expertise, a trial or compensation.

Emmanuel Macron declared, on the evening of his re-election, that he wanted to be the president of all.

Make sure that, during the next five years, he does not forget to be, too, that of the victims.