A study of hundreds of rapists in Paris shows the profile of an attacker is that of a jobless, foreign man who is 34 years old, but women’s rights groups have attacked the results.

According to the French National Supervisory Body on Crime and Punishment, there were 688 acts of rape recorded in Paris in the years 2013 and 2014. Analysis of the figures conducted by French newspaper Le Parisien has produced what it says are the typical characteristics of attackers, victims, and the likely areas where attacks will occur.

The attackers are 100 per cent likely to be a males who are on average 34 years old. 52 per cent of them are foreign and 48 per cent are likely to be known to police. More than 50 per cent of attackers will be unemployed.

The analysis shows that in 50 per cent of cases the attacker is known to the victim. Indeed, in 26 per cent of cases attackers are either a friend or an acquaintance of a victim, in 23 per cent they are married or used to be married, and for one per cent there is a family relationship.

93 per cent of victims are women, averaging 30 years old, 69 per cent of whom are French nationals. 50 percent of those attacked were “intoxicated” at the time, most commonly with alcohol.

The feminist group Osez le Féminisme, has attacked the statistical analysis is a statement given to The Local. It points out that with only 10 per cent of rapes being reported in France, statistics based on reported crime are unreliable, saying:

“Victims of rape are often reluctant to complain, and rapists go unpunished. There’s the fear of not being believed, the poor reception at the police station where officers are badly trained (or aren’t at all), the lengthy and tiresome legal proceedings, and lenient sentences for aggressors.”

While it is true to say that a large number of sexual assaults do go unreported for a wide range of reasons, the analysis conducted by Le Parisien is not without value.

Speaking to the French news magazine L’Express, the president of the Feminist Collective Against Rape, Emmanuelle Piet, says that it does not provide a picture of every sexual attacker, but does provide a “portrait of the perpetrator against whom a complaint has been filed”.