Women’s rights defenders hope to mobilize en masse on Saturday, November 20, in the streets of Paris and many other cities in France, to say “Stop” gender-based and sexual violence and “Demand public policies to match” against this scourge.
According to the feminist collective #NousToutes, at the initiative of the call, around sixty demonstrations are organized in France ahead of the International Day for the fight against violence against women, on November 25. As the collective recalls in its appeal, November 20 is also World Child Protection Day and the International Trans Day of Remembrance, and the demonstrations will remind people that gender-based and sexual violence “Which particularly target children, women or trans people are not inevitable”.
In Paris, the departure of the procession is scheduled for 2 p.m., Place de la République. In 2019, the demonstration had attracted 100,000 people, according to the organizers (35,000 according to the police). After the cancellation in 2020 due to the health crisis due to the Covid-19 epidemic, the organizers hope to mobilize tens of thousands of demonstrators.
101 women killed by their partner in 2021
Activists hope “Cry out their anger”, as well as challenge candidates for the presidential election and “Denounce the gap” between the ” speech [des pouvoirs publics] and reality “, explains Marylie Breuil, from the feminist collective #NousToutes, who deplores the fact that the means deployed against violence against women and feminicides are “Derisory”, despite the progress made since Grenelle organized at the end of 2019.
The #NousToutes collective recalls that around 220,000 women are victims of violence and 94,000 are raped each year in France. Since 1er January, 101 women were killed by their spouses, according to the count of the collective Feminicides by companions or ex. In 2020, 102 feminicides had been identified, and 146 in 2019, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
Financial means, accommodation and prevention
Feminist organizations believe that the state should devote one billion euros per year to this fight, instead of 360 million today. They also call for preventive measures: “We have to teach the youngest what consent is, and that all middle and high school students pass a certificate of education in non-violence, on the same model as [celui de] road safety “, detailed Mme Breuil.
The associations are also asking for an additional effort to create more accommodation places for women fleeing their violent partners. In such a situation, around 40% of victims are not offered any accommodation solution, and only 12% get a suitable place, with legal and psychological support, according to a report published Thursday by the Women’s Foundation.
Several presidential candidates announced
The Parisian march on Saturday must be opened by young people, high school students and students, and will include a procession of families of victims of feminicides.
Several personalities are announced, including the presidential candidates Yannick Jadot (Europe Ecologie-Les Verts), Anne Hidalgo (Socialist Party) and Philippe Poutou (New Anti-Capitalist Party), as well as the actresses Sandrine Bonnaire and Muriel Robin, who played at screen Jacqueline Sauvage, convicted of having killed her violent husband.
The event will also be an opportunity to denounce incest, pedophile violence or violence suffered by children in the marital context, said the organizers, who are waiting for the actress and director Andréa Bescond, author of Tickling, or François Devaux, who fights against pedocriminality in the Catholic Church.
For the first time, a “Christian procession”, worn by “Christian feminist and LGBTQIA organizations [lesbiennes, gays, bisexuels, trans, queers, intersexes et asexuels] “, has also announced that he will take part in the Parisian procession, “Around the victims of gender-based and sexual violence in our Churches”.