Macron hears police officer refuse to help woman in danger

French president’s visit to hotline was supposed to showcase crackdown on domestic violence

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
@achrisafis
Wed 4 Sep 2019 12.39 BSTLast modified on Wed 4 Sep 2019 13.37 BST

It was supposed to be a showcase of the French government’s new crackdown on domestic violence.

But instead, when the French president, Emmanuel Macron, visited the national domestic violence hotline and listened in to the morning’s calls, he heard in real time how a local police officer was refusing to help a woman in danger.

The French gendarmerie, or military police, on Wednesday opened an investigation into “failings” over the incident, which the president said highlighted the lack of understanding of domestic violence.

After at least 100 women in France were killed this year by current or former partners, Macron made a quiet visit to a domestic violence hotline centre in Paris on Tuesday.

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A distressed 57-year-old woman called in saying her violent husband had threatened to kill her after years of escalating abuse at home and that she had to leave. She was at the local police station. She said she had filed a police complaint but, fearing her husband would murder her, she had asked the police to accompany her home to safely retrieve her possessions before leaving. But the police refused.

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