Sexual assault and sex attacks have become an increasingly common phenomenon on the Paris metro and the RER train in recent years and Parisians have become less and less enamoured with public transport, particularly in regards to safety.
A poll released earlier this year revealed that half of those living in the French capital felt unsafe when travelling by metro, several percentage points ahead of France as a whole.
In response to the growing insecurity, RATP, the publicly-owned company that runs the Paris public transport network, has announced a new initiative to help victims of sexual violence or gender-based violence.
The initiative involves setting up so-called “safe spaces”, a report from broadcaster BFMTV notes, and will begin in September with the Auber and Opera metro stations the first to take part in the new plan.
According to the broadcaster, the safe spaces may be a nearby shop, restaurant, or shop, depending on which metro or RER station it is, and employees at the establishments will be trained in how to welcome those victimised by sexual violence.
Sandrine Charnoz, project manager for the fight against sexual harassment in transport at RATP, commented on the new project saying that the RATP hoped to bring large brands on board with the initiative, with the goal being to provide travellers with a safe and serene journey.
The spaces will be noted on an app developed to combat street harassment called UMAY, which lists safe places and allows users to report incidents during their journey, including physical and sexual aggression and claims to have been downloaded at least 70,000 times.
UMAY is not the first app of its kind, as back in 2017 a similar app was developed in Paris called “No-Go Zone” which allowed users to catalogue various incidents on a map of the city, including assaults, thefts, sex attacks, and more.
Another app called “Mon Chaperon,” or My Chaperone, also emerged in late 2016 to offer chaperone services to escort women and others who felt unsafe travelling by themselves.
Sex attacks on the Paris metro are a particular problem in the city, with an astounding 93.5% of women in the Paris region have claimed to have experienced some sort of harassment on public transportation.
In 2018 alone, there were 1,159 reports of sexual assaults on the Paris region metro system, with over half of the reports in the city of Paris and the remaining reports taking place in the various suburbs around the French capital.
According to at least one police officer working undercover on the Paris metro system, there is a common trend among those who commit sex attacks on the metro, that the majority of the attackers come from migrant backgrounds.
The officer, named Fabien, told the newspaper Le Figaro in 2018, “For more than ten years that I have done this job, the suspects I have arrested are a very, very large majority from a North African origin.”
In at least one case in recent years, a police officer was the victim of a sex attack on the Paris metro. In 2021, a female off-duty officer was travelling on the RER train when a Pakistani migrant sat next to her after getting on at the Gare Du Nord station.
The official claimed the 27-year-old migrant tried to put his hands on her and his genitals several times before fleeing when the officer tried to detain him. The Pakistani national was later arrested in the suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis.
Thefts, in particular pick-pocketing, are also a major issue on the metro, as organised gangs make off with mobile phones and other objects. One such gang, comprising at least 20 members, was sentenced to a total of 113 years in prison in 2019 after an investigation by French and Romanian authorities.
