The analysis of civil society data taken into account by the OSCE in its reports gives a figure of 1,627 offences. In 2015, the first year in which civil society reports are recorded in France, the figure rises to 742, the year with the highest number of cases, before falling gradually over the period to 112 incidents in 2020.

In 2020, the trend is clearly upwards: in half a year, the number of complaints for the whole of 2019 had been exceeded. Such data may be distorted by the incidence of the COVID pandemic in observatories or organisations that collect attacks and motivations. The motivation that has registered the highest number of crimes is that of attacks against Christian symbols, with the figure standing at 767 (47.14%), practically half of the total.

The number of anti-Semitic crimes is very high, reaching 500 (30.73%), with Islamophobic attacks closing the trio of the most numerous motivations at 221 (13.58%). Also noteworthy are those attacks motivated by racism and xenophobia, 60 (3.69%) and those motivated by homophobia, 48 (2.95%).

The rest of the motivations correspond to crimes that have not presented any figures (against members of other religions or people with disabilities) or the figure has been very low (anti-Roma 2 cases, i.e. 0.12%, or political intolerance 17 cases, i.e. 1.04%).

An elaborate system of statistics. Thanks to the rigorous work carried out by the French authorities, together with civil society, the French model today is the most advanced of the countries studied.

To record the hidden black figures, France has the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, a state structure made up of 64 representatives of civil society organisations, which carries out a completely independent advisory and propositional role in the field of human rights for the government and parliament.

Assimilated to an Independent Administrative Authority (AAI), it is made up of organisations such as the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, the French Council of Muslim Worship, the Jewish Community Protection Services, etc. Its work includes the study of complaints of discrimination, particularly on grounds of origin, nationality or religious affiliation.

RACIST KILLING IN ROUEN (FRA-1492). Guinean researcher Mamoudou Barry, 31, dies after being assaulted by a man who hurled racist insults at him in Rouen in July 2019. The victim was the father of a two-year-old girl. The alleged assailant, a 29-year-old man with a criminal record, was admitted to a psychiatric centre.

Vanesa Campos was one of the sex workers in the Bois de Boulogne, the largest park in Paris, who had been known to act as a spokesperson for her colleagues in the media.

The 36-year-old Peruvian transsexual worked there until the night of 16-17 August 2018, when she was shot in the chest, according to French media.

Although the details of what happened have not yet emerged, the testimonies of her colleagues suggest that Vanessa was killed when she confronted a group of criminals who were harassing them and their clients with an added component of homophobic motivation.

THE MURDER OF MIREILLE KNOLL (FRA-1358). Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor, was stabbed to death, and her home in the 11th arrondissement of Paris was set on fire. In 1942, Knoll had managed to escape the Vél d’Hiv round-up, in which more than 13,000 Jews, including 4,000 children, were rounded up by French policemen under the Vichy regime and taken to the Auschtwitz extermination camp. Knoll’s mother, who had a Brazilian passport, managed to flee with the little girl to Portugal. Knoll later moved to Paris, where she married another Holocaust survivor who died a few years before she was murdered. Since she became a widow, she had lived alone in her flat, which on 23 March 2018 was entered by two young men who were later charged with a hate crime because of the anti-Semitic component of the crime. It later emerged that one of the accused, a Muslim of North African origin, was a neighbour of the victim.

MUDER OF A JEWISH DOCTOR (FRA-1092). Sarah Halimi, a 60-year-old Jewish woman and retired doctor, was murdered in her Paris home and her body defenestrated. The perpetrator was a 27-year-old man who shouted “Allahou Akbar” at the time of the crime and suffered from psychiatric problems. The courts declared that, because of these problems, he could not be criminally prosecuted, a decision that was not without protest.

A wave of ultra-violent attacks by extreme right-wing groups against the refugee camp in Calais. In February 2016, a report by the NGO Care4Calais revealed attacks that far-right groups were perpetrating against migrants in the refugee camp in the French town of Calais. Among the attacks recorded were beatings of migrants, who were allegedly stripped naked, handcuffed and beaten one by one.

Rally of extreme right-wing supporters.

96 graves are desecrated at the Jewish cemetery in Quatzenheim. In the small village of Quatzenheim, a town of 780 inhabitants near Strasbourg, 96 of the 245 graves in the Jewish cemetery were desecrated in the early hours of 19 February 2019 with graffiti in German and swastikas. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, visited the cemetery and laid a white rose at the foot of the Deportation Memorial.

Swastikas on graves at Quatzenheim cemetery