“When I see the police, I tremble”: the double trauma of women victims of violence who file complaints

While equality between men and women was declared the “great national cause” of President Macron’s first term, victims of gender-based and sexual violence still face major obstacles when trying to file a complaint. Between poor treatment, verbal and psychological abuse, sexism and racism, going to certain police stations or gendarmeries can represent a double trauma for victims.
An article by Eléna Roney for INDEX.

“During intimate encounters, my ex strangled me, choked me with his knees, forced me. When I filed a complaint for domestic and sexual violence, I told them about it. Later, during a phone call with the gendarmerie to report new acts of violence, the officer who answered called me a ‘whore’. I regretted telling them so much,” Nadine* (who asked that her true name not be published) sobbed in one breath, crying. Between 2020 and 2023, she filed nine reports and eleven complaints for domestic and sexual violence, all dismissed without further action, despite many days worth of total temporary incapacity for work (ITT). “I went a lot to the Saint-Germain-lès-Corbeil gendarmerie, where I lived. They refused many times to take my complaints for domestic violence.” When contacted, the gendarmerie did not respond.

Such a behaviour is against the law. Article 15-3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure states that police and gendarmerie officers “are required to receive complaints filed by victims of criminal offenses.” In 2019, the Council of Europe highlighted in a report France’s failings in combating violence against women, especially regarding the reception of victims by law enforcement.

The above incidents are far from isolated cases. Many women report catastrophic, even violent, receptions in various police stations and gendarmeries. Also in 2019, the government launched the “Grenelle against domestic violence”, one of whose stated goals was to improve the reception of women in police stations and gendarmeries. In 2021, the #NousToutes collective launched a survey called #PrendsMaPlainte, collecting over 3,500 testimonies in 15 days, mostly recounting poor treatment by law enforcement.

Yet, at the time, the Ministry of the Interior declared that “90% of women who filed complaints in 2020 for domestic violence were satisfied with the reception in police stations and gendarmeries.” Neither the General Inspectorate of the National Police nor the General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie responded to inquiries. “We still receive testimonies daily,” says Linda, an activist with #NousToutes. “There are refusals to take complaints, trivialization, minimization. Judgments are made on the victims and their values. The blame is often put on the victim, which is not the case for other crimes. You wouldn’t ask a person who was robbed if they consented, nor question the context or prior behavior to prove it’s their fault and thus not punish the perpetrator,” she adds.

“Get out, go take your pills”

For INDEX, six women agreed to testify, anonymously or not, about the poor reception and verbal abuse they endured from police officers or gendarmes when they tried to file complaints for sexist, sexual, and domestic violence. The Ministry of the Interior, specifically questioned on this matter, did not comment on these behaviors.

For Alison Blondy, it all began in 2016. She met a man who gradually inflicted psychological, financial, physical, and sexual violence on her. In 2019, she decided to file a complaint, including for rape and physical violence. The first officer who took her statement said, “I’m noting it, but the violence will not be taken into account.” The violence continued, and Alison filed multiple complaints at the Châlons-en-Champagne police station. “From that moment, I was badly received. They told me to see if the grass was greener elsewhere, asked why I got involved with such a guy, said they were tired of seeing me,” she recounts. Once, Alison was chased in her car by her ex-partner, with her three-year-old daughter inside. She rushed to the police station; the door was ajar. While explaining her situation, she was told the station was closed and had to go elsewhere. “I thought my ex would end up killing me,” she sighs.

At her last complaint for rape, Alison was called back by the officer who took her statement, who then proposed a date. “At that moment, I really thought: ‘OK, they’re not going to do anything for me.’” Later, Alison moved and filed a complaint at another station in Chennevières-sur-Marne. “There, they immediately took me seriously, asked the right questions, reassured me, and said, ‘We believe you.’” In 2023, Alison’s ex was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The current head of the Châlons-en-Champagne station called this story “regrettable,” claiming he was not aware of Alison’s ordeal as he was “not in office” at the time. “For several years, we have made great efforts to ensure victims of sexual and sexist violence are treated respectfully,” he said, without detailing any specific measures such as appointing a dedicated contact person. Also, at the same station, four officers were tried in 2019 for aggravated violence and moral harassment of a colleague, partly due to sexist insults. Two were sentenced to suspended prison terms, and two were acquitted.

This refusal to take victims seriously was also experienced by Julie (who asked that her true name not be published). Not wanting to file a complaint, she filed two official reports (main courante) in 2020 at a gendarmerie in Ain for verbal and physical violence by her partner. The first time, Julie was “very well received.” But not the second time. She returned after another episode of violence to file another report, hoping at least to leave a trace, a record. But the gendarmes refused to take it unless she filed a full complaint. “Because I cried and insisted, they accepted,” she recalls. Upon arrival, an officer changing clothes in the hallway told her, “You need to divorce, sell the house.” She wanted to read the sheet where she had written everything to remember for her report but was refused. “It’s already so hard to go there, we’re ashamed, we’re hurt. And they receive us by blaming us,” she adds bitterly.

For Myriam (who also asked that her true name not be published), her many visits to police and gendarmeries were akin to traumas. Between 2021 and 2024, she filed several complaints for death threats, harassment, blackmail, rape, physical and verbal violence against her ex, all dismissed without action. She met her ex in 2015 while he was imprisoned for murder (unknown to her, as he initially said he was incarcerated for six months). They married in 2019; a week later, he raped her during a prison visit. Outside, Myriam was threatened by his associates. Her ex used their marriage to obtain prison leaves. She filed a complaint in 2021 “with fear in my heart of denouncing my already incarcerated abuser.” She went to the Avignon police station, where her complaint was refused. Same for gendarmeries in Villeneuve-Loubet and Le Pontet later. At Le Pontet, when she spoke of sexual violence, the gendarmes laughed and refused to classify it as sexual assault. “They didn’t care. They threatened to place me in custody because I talked on the phone with an inmate.” Later, she learned they lost her eight-day ITT certificate provided after finally managing to file a complaint. The Pontet gendarmerie declined to comment; the Cannes departmental gendarmerie company, overseeing Villeneuve-Loubet, also did not respond.

One day, Myriam went to Villeneuve-Loubet gendarmerie to check on her complaint’s progress. “When I arrived, four of them grabbed me by the arms, made me cry, and made me leave. They said, ‘Are you filing a complaint or not?’ When I said yes, they let me back in. Another time, they said I was clogging public service.” A few days ago, she went again to report pressure on her mother by her ex. “They said among themselves, ‘don’t talk to her,’ then told me, ‘Get lost, go take your pills.’” Traumatized, she has PTSD, lost teeth, vomits, and was hospitalized several times for suicide attempts. She regularly writes to the prosecutor about these dysfunctions, but nothing changes. “I’m afraid of dying,” she wrote to the sentencing judge, “whether by [my ex’s] hands or my own.”

“Men are superior to women because God willed it”

The same dynamics are at play in urban centers. Clara Achour faced police contempt at a Paris police station. “In 2018, I was raped several times after a night where a friend drugged me. When I went to file a complaint the next day, I met untrained officers. The premises were decorated with machist posters. One said something like, ‘Men are superior to women because God willed it.’ I gave my statement on the same floor as others, all doors open, no privacy.”

Interviewed by the investigating officer, she noticed his clear lack of training on sexual and sexist violence. “He regularly asked me, ‘Why didn’t you defend yourself? How did you manage the pain? Do you think it’s normal to sleep with a boy? Do you know what happens if you file a false complaint?’” Clara said she threatened to withdraw her complaint and said it would be his fault if she committed suicide. “That’s why he kept me. But after that, I didn’t trust him at all.” In 2022, the man Clara accused was acquitted by the Paris Assize Court.

That same year, Clara Achour lodged an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against France for denial of justice in the acquittal of the man who allegedly raped her, and for failure to comply with the Istanbul Convention on the treatment of victims of sexual violence. She is now awaiting the decision of the ECHR, which is expected to issue its ruling in the coming weeks.

Stéphanie’s case is a particular one. Her “tormentor,” as she calls her ex-husband, is a senior gendarmerie officer. “He abused me in the barracks where we lived. The duty officer, alerted by neighbors, had to come to our home several times to intervene,” she recounts. “At first, I didn’t want to file a complaint. But one day, he pointed his service weapon at my temple. I was truly afraid for my life.” In 2021, she filed her first complaint. Even though she lived in a city—where investigations are normally handled by the police—the inquiry and interviews were conducted internally by the gendarmerie where she resided. “One night, my ex-husband was losing his mind, so I called the police. But it was the gendarmes who showed up at our home.”

One day, Stéphanie discovered that her ex-husband had emptied the house they owned in Brittany and had taken firearms with him. She filed another complaint in 2022. “A gendarmerie brigade in the Paris region called me, and I didn’t understand why the police weren’t handling it.” Following her complaint for domestic violence, her husband was transferred and received the Légion d’honneur. Stéphanie reports that her ex-husband had anticipated that she would eventually file a complaint against him. He had allegedly recorded her without her knowledge on several occasions, including the day she “slapped him to defend [herself] from yet another verbal assault.” Using that video, he filed a complaint against her. “I felt like he was immediately taken seriously. I was summoned right away. They treated me like I was crazy. I was interrogated for over five hours about that incident.”

“You live in a beautiful house, and you dare say you want to file a complaint against your partner?”

Nadine’s ex-partner—the same woman who testified at the beginning of this investigation—also used the tactic of filing a complaint against her to preempt any legal action she might take.

“He filed a complaint against me at the same gendarmerie in Saint-Germain-lès-Corbeil, the one that had refused to take mine. He made up a story that I strangled him and locked him in the bedroom. I was taken into custody from noon to 5 p.m., without water or food. I should note that when I tried to file my first complaint in 2020, they discouraged me from doing so. One time, after refusing to take my complaint, a gendarme followed me home. He entered the house with my ex and said to me: ‘Look at where you live, what a beautiful house, and you dare say you want to file a complaint against your partner? If he gets up in the morning to go to work, it’s for you.’”

Nadine recalls that “when my ex would hit me,” the gendarmes “refused to intervene. But they would show up when he called them, to intimidate me. The only time they came to help me was because the neighbors called them. That day, I was given several days of ITT (temporary work incapacity), but even with witnesses present, they still refused to take my complaint.” She ended up filing it at another police station, “but it was dismissed because the investigation was assigned to the Saint-Germain-lès-Corbeil gendarmerie.”

In the complaint filed by Nadine’s ex, he claimed she was suicidal and had injured herself. “I once caught him putting a white powder in my soup bowl. So I told myself that this complaint was just in case he killed me—he could say I did it to myself,” Nadine says.

“It’s a strategy often used by abusers,” explains Stéphanie Le Gal-Gorin, a sociologist and expert on combating gender-based and sexual violence, who works at a day center in Brittany for women victims of domestic and sexual abuse, supporting them throughout their legal and administrative processes. “Men who file complaints for domestic violence are sometimes received more seriously than women, due to sexist biases. Those taking the complaints see them as brave for coming forward,” the researcher explains.

“Here, we don’t like North Africans”

For some women, sexism is compounded by other forms of discrimination. In Nadine’s case—not being French—she also became a victim of racism, as her complaints were reportedly rejected due to her nationality. One gendarme even told her: “You know, here we don’t like North Africans.” Another referred to her ex-partner as “a fellow Frenchman.”

“Even though there are places where things go well, especially where there are dedicated officers trained in handling violence, many police stations and gendarmeries still receive victims poorly,” says Violaine Husson, Head of Gender and Protection Issues at La Cimade, an organization that provides support and protection for migrants. “It’s often impossible to get an interpreter, and foreign women are told to bring proof in order to file a complaint—which is illegal.” In the most extreme cases, some women who went to report domestic violence ended up in police custody and were then placed in detention centers. According to Violaine Husson, three women were even deported from France.

Sex workers also face dual discrimination because of their profession. Berthe De Laon, coordinator of Fédération Parapluie Rouge—a coalition of collectives advocating for sex workers’ health and rights—recounts what some police officers and gendarmes have told these women: “They say: ‘Ma’am, you weren’t raped—it’s your job.’ In other cases, they’re forced to reveal the names of their exploiters. But that puts them in danger if they report someone.”

“The behavior of law enforcement toward me is a second trauma”

The refusal to register complaints from victims of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as their mistreatment within police institutions, has a name among specialists: “secondary victimization.” To illustrate the concept, Stéphanie Le Gal-Gorin recounts the case of a rape victim she worked with. This woman, who was experiencing vaginal hemorrhaging as a result of the assault, was told by a gendarme during questioning: “It was just a sex game that went wrong.”

A lack of protection can also contribute to this additional trauma, as Nadine explains: “The behavior of law enforcement toward me is truly a second trauma,” she says. “I thought my ex was going to kill me, and then on top of that, I wasn’t protected. Because of them, he can keep attacking me. Now, when I see the police or gendarmes, I tremble—I’m scared.”

In 2023, according to France’s Ministry of the Interior, out of 96 women victims of femicide, 39% had already experienced prior violence. Among those 39%, 81% had reported the violence to law enforcement—90% of them by filing formal complaints.

A Patriarchal Environment Filled with Sexist Stereotypes

How to explain the behavior of police officers and gendarmes toward women who report violence? One of the main explanations researchers offer is the weight of a deeply sexist and patriarchal institutional culture. According to INSEE statistics, women made up only 21% of police and gendarmerie personnel in 2019.

This context helps explain why “what emerges from the testimonies of women victims of sexual and gender-based violence is the prevalence of sexist stereotypes that prevent a proper understanding of gender-based violence dynamics by law enforcement”, says Cristina Oddone, PhD in Sociology, lecturer at ENSEIS in Annecy, and associate researcher at the Max Weber Center. According to her, “officers tend to interpret violence as mere domestic disputes, underestimating the danger to women and children.”

Stéphanie Le Gal-Gorin adds that this tendency is also linked to “the personal backgrounds of many gendarmes and police officers, which are filled with sexist stereotypes that have never been challenged.” She notes, “I work with a number of women victims who were former partners of police officers or gendarmes.”

In addition to the patriarchal dynamic, geographic factors also play a role. “In rural areas, there’s often a strong familiarity between law enforcement and the local population,” says Jérémie Gauthier, a sociologist at the University of Strasbourg and Sciences Po Paris, who has studied policing for several years. This closeness can lead to “male solidarity between gendarmes and men who are accused by their partners.”

He also notes that within police culture, what is considered “valuable” is often tied to classifying offenses under criminal law. “Law enforcement prioritizes categorizing criminal offenses. As a result, assisting women victims of violence tends to be seen as less of a priority compared to meeting institutional performance metrics,” Gauthier explains.

An Urgent Need for Training

Faced with the double trauma experienced by victims of sexual and gender-based violence, several solutions have been proposed. Stéphanie Le Gal-Gorin insists: “There needs to be a common training foundation, so that everyone can deconstruct their own biases and adopt a non-judgmental attitude when receiving a victim.”

This perspective highlights how, according to Jérémie Gauthier, “the job of a police officer isn’t only about enforcing the law—it’s also about social work.” He adds that “positive results have been observed when the job allows for more than just strict judicial processing, such as when resources are allocated to the creation of specialized units for supporting women victims of violence.”

For its part, the Ministry of the Interior told Index: “Since the Grenelle on domestic violence, 160,000 active-duty gendarmes and police officers have been trained to handle cases of domestic violence.” It’s worth noting that in 2019, France employed 224,000 police officers and gendarmes, according to INSEE. The ministry adds: “There are more than 2,500 domestic violence liaison officers assigned to police stations and gendarmerie brigades across the country.”

These are solutions that urgently need to be implemented, as they offer a source of hope for victims. As Alison Blondy puts it: “Coming across trained, compassionate, exceptional policewomen truly restored my confidence. Hearing ‘We believe you’—that was incredible. It really shows that if officers were better trained, more women would be able to file complaints and avoid suffering twice.”