Mon, Aug 18, 2003 page9

• French put domestic violence in the spotlight

  • By Catherine Bremer / REUTERS
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  The death of actress Marie Trintignant after a heated row with her rock star lover has unleashed an outcry over domestic violence in France -- where one in 10 women is beaten at home.

  As an autopsy revealed that Trintignant, a classic beauty who had graced French movie screens since childhood, died from blows to the face, a year-old study resurfaced showing that her death is not that extraordinary.

  Every five days a woman is beaten to death by her partner, and wife-battering in France is just as prevalent among the well-heeled as among the underprivileged, according to the government-commissioned study which was published originally in June last year.

  "Trintignant's death has shaken public opinion and smashed stereotypes about domestic violence. Even independent, assertive women can be victims," said Marie-Dominique de Suremain, head of the National Federation for Women's Solidarity.

  "There are 1.5 million women in France who are abused -- physically, sexually or psychologically -- by husbands or partners. That implies there are 1.5 million men out there behind this violence, and you wouldn't know to look at them."

  The federation, which groups 54 associations, struggles to cope with some 15,000 calls each year from battered women.

  Wearing white ribbons as a sign of non-violence, some 200 supporters converged on a Paris square to lay a wreath of sunflowers in memory of victims of fatal beatings.

  "Too many women are murdered. We're fed up with macho men," read a slogan, pinned up alongside the names of some victims.

  According to the European Lobby for Women, France is sandwiched between the Netherlands, where 13 percent of women report violence at home, and Switzerland, where six percent do.

  In Spain, where violence against women is a big issue, 45 women have died so far this year at the hands of their partners.

  Saddled with the same Latin macho attitudes, French women have been downtrodden for years -- getting the vote only in 1944. They still generally earn less than men who do the same work and are under-represented in politics.

  Sociologists say some men feel threatened by living with successful career-women who earn big bucks, making them financially independent, and enjoy busy social lives.

  "Some men have this archaic view that it is normal for women to be disadvantaged. If they see their wives becoming ambitious and independent, they feel inadequate, they resist and sometimes they refuse to accept it," said de Suremain.

  "We hear terrible things. A lot of women are hit in the face or eye. Some have their backs broken and are left handicapped for life. Some are even dangled out of windows by their feet. The more this comes out into the open, the better."

  Trintignant, daughter of movie star Jean-Louis Trintignant, was buried last week after an emotional funeral attended by actress Catherine Deneuve, former prime minister Lionel Jospin and British actress and singer Jane Birkin, among others.

  Her boyfriend Bertrand Cantat, lead singer of the popular French group Noir Desir, is in custody in Lithuania pending an inquiry into manslaughter after an incident in the couple's Vilnius hotel room on July 27 left Trintignant in a fatal coma.

  Ironically, the poetry-loving Cantat has always been seen as a left-wing pacifist. The 39-year-old singer opposed the war in Iraq and has espoused a series of politically correct causes.

  And while she often played fragile characters, 41-year-old mother-of-four Trintignant was a standard-bearer for feminism.

  At her funeral, Culture Minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon recalled "the solitary struggle she led for all people ... and most particularly for women: for their freedom, for their dignity and for the defense of their equality."

  The influential daily newspaper Le Monde called Trintignant's death "proof that domestic violence is not restricted to the underprivileged, unemployed, violent or alcoholic."

  In fact the study of last year shows that executives are behind twice as many beatings as blue-collar workers -- although the figure may be distorted by differences in how likely women from different backgrounds are to report violence to the police.

  It also shows that only a third of beatings were alcohol-fuelled.

  Cantat, looking wan and dejected in a Lithuanian courtroom, has insisted that Tritignant's death was "an unhappy accident" and not a crime. Sympathizing, the left-wing daily Liberation said Cantat's life had been "destroyed by a moment of madness".

  But the view that it's "okay" for lovers' tiffs to now and then come to blows has been torn apart in a sea of commentary in websites and newspapers, and opponents of domestic violence are making Trintignant their symbol.

  "Sympathy for Cantat? It's a bit much to feel sorry for a guy that hits his girlfriend," wrote one reader in response to Liberation's article.

  And as a bystander at Trintignant's funeral remarked: "When you love someone, you don't beat them to death."
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