This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

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.

Wearing headphones, the president sat silently listening in to calls being taken by an experienced hotline operator.

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.

“You’re in the police station? You’re in danger. Your husband is at home. The police can accompany you,” the operator assured the caller.

The woman said that the police were refusing to do so. Macron looked visibly angered and shook his head, but remained silent.

“They have to help a person in danger,” the operator insisted and asked to speak to the police officer.

In a call that lasted 15 minutes, the operator attempted in vain to persuade the gendarme to help, but the officer insisted it wasn’t his place to intervene. Unaware that the president was listening in, the officer said – wrongly – that he would need a judicial order to accompany the woman.

Macron silently shook his head and wrote a note on a piece of paper, handing it to the operator.

“It’s the gendarme’s job to protect her when there is a clear risk,” with or without any extra judicial permission, the note said.

The hotline operator continued to press the officer, at one point saying: “This woman is under threat of death, are you waiting until she’s actually killed?”

But the officer refused to act.

After the call, an exasperated Macron asked: “Does that happen often?”

The operator, who had been working on the hotline for over 20 years, said: “Oh yes, more and more frequently.”

Caroline de Haas, a feminist campaigner, said the incident showed the dangerous lack of training among state professionals: “I hope that Emmanuel Macron, now he has been confronted with the daily reality for women experiencing domestic violence, will take initiatives to improve things on the ground. He has said it himself – this is a problem with training, professionals are not properly trained in how to detect domestic violence or how to respond to women who are victims of it.”

She said Macron did not need to change laws or make decrees, but he must increase funding.