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CRIME

Murder in Paris: The profile of a crime

Murders in the French capital are thankfully rare but naturally do occur. A new study released this week has revealed who is the typical Parisian murderer, who are their victims and when do the crimes take place.

Murder in Paris: The profile of a crime
Photo: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP

Paris is far from being the murder capital of France, that title tends to go to Marseille or Corsica, but people are killed each year in the City of Light.

A study, released on Wednesday by the National Observatory of Crime and Criminal Responses, examines murder cases in Paris and the surrounding departments of Val-de-Marne, Hauts-de-Seine and Seine-Saint-Denis, reports Le Parisien newspaper.

It sheds some light on who the victims are, where and how they killed as well as when.

Between 2007 and 2013, 602 homicides were recorded across all four areas, of which 226 were in the capital – although the numbers have been falling since 2010, from 103 in that year to 95 the following year, 78 in 2012 and 73 last year.

Here we delve into the darker side of the City Of Light and look at ten facts about murder in Paris.

  • Saturday night is the prime homicide time, with 97 percent of murders in Paris committed on this day.

  • Victims are most likely to be men, aged 25-34.

  • Men are ten times more likely to commit murder – 91 percent of perpetrators are male and only nine percent female – and likely to be aged 25-34.

  • Getting into a fight is the fastest way to get yourself killed, with 34 percent of murders the result of altercations. Half of these cases involved people who knew each other.

  • Foreign residents of the capital and its suburbs are more likely to be victims, at 49 percent of the total.

  • Only 19 percent of homicides are related to criminal activity.

  • Victims are as likely to be killed in public as in private, with the split being 49 to 51 percent for the latter.

  • Those killed in a private space, are overwhelmingly likely to be murdered in their  own house, with 82 percent of killings behind closed doors occurring in the victim's home. These victims are overwhelmingly female. Domestic violence accounts for 28 percent of murders in the French capital.

  • Of murders committed in public, the biggest proportion – 35 percent – are on the highway.

  • The majority of killings are carried out with a weapon – 64 percent. Knives or sharp objects commonly found in the home are used in 34 percent of domestic cases, but when it comes to murders committed in the name of the settling of accounts, a gun is used in 86 percent of cases.

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CRIME

France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website

French authorities have uncovered a website for a fake recruitment drive purportedly seeking French volunteers to fight for Ukraine against the Russian invasion, the defence ministry said on Thursday.

France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website

The site has now been taken down by French services, a government source, who asked not to be named, told AFP without elaborating.

The site had said that 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine”, with immigrants given priority.

A link to the site – that resembled the French army’s genuine recruitment portal – had been posted on X, formerly Twitter, the French defence ministry said.

“The site is a fake government site,” the ministry said, also on X, “and has been reposted by malevolent accounts as part of a disinformation campaign”.

The ministry did not say who they thought might be responsible. But a source close to the government told AFP initial evidence pointed to communications operations linked to Russian mercenary group Wagner.

“The accounts used and the technical data behind them, these are the people we know”, the source said.

“These people are still there and remain very focused on Ukraine. The subject of the French army is something that annoys them a lot.”

Separately, a government official speaking on condition of anonymity said the site bore “the hallmarks of a Russian or pro-Russian effort as part of a disinformation campaign claiming that the French army is preparing to send troops to Ukraine”.

French President Emmanuel Macron angered the Russian leadership last month by hardening his tone on the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In recent weeks he has refused to rule out sending ground troops and insisted that Europe has to do all that is necessary for a Russian defeat.

France has already accused Russia of waging a disinformation campaign against it.

The official told AFP that similar recent examples of disinformation posts included pictures of French army convoys wrongly presented as moving towards the Ukrainian border.

The fake website invited potential recruits to contact “unit commander Paul” for information about joining.

The defence ministry and government cyber units are investigating, ministry staff told AFP.

The French government has recently stepped up efforts to denounce and fight what it says are Russian disinformation and destabilisation campaigns aimed at undermining French public support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

“Russia is asserting itself as the most aggressive player in the information field,” Marc-Antoine Brillant, the head of Viginum, an agency mandated to detect digital disinformation campaigns, said in an interview with French daily Le Figaro.

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