Organisation

French Ministerial Statistical Department for Internal Security (Service Statistique Ministériel de la Sécurité Intérieure, SSMSI).

Start and end date

This is a two-phase general population survey that includes a sample of individuals. The data collection is taking place during the first half of 2021, and the provisional date for publication of the results is during the second trimester of 2022. The survey will be ad hoc or multi-annual.

Scope

For the screening survey, the sampling plan provides for sampling 170,000 individuals, to be able to establish estimates at department level rather than at the level of regions and large regions.

Target group(s)

The main objective of the survey is to measure gender-based violence. However, the survey does make it possible to target victims of wilful physical violence committed because of the victims’ origin, religion, skin colour or sexual orientation.

Funding

This official statistics survey, for which the SSMSI designed the original protocol with methodological support from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, benefits from European funding. The SSMSI responded to a call for proposals that Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, launched for a survey on gender-based violence at the national level by the Member States, on the basis of a questionnaire that is validated at European level. The SSMSI’s application was accepted at the end of November 2019.

Objectives

• Measure gender-based violence by estimating, over the course of a year, its prevalence by sex and type of perpetrator, its incidence and the propensity of victims to file a complaint. Gaining more subjective information on security fears and the trust placed in the security services will make it possible to better identify the context of the attacks suffered and will supplement existing information on victims’ reasons for not filing complaints.
• Collect localised data on violence, feelings of insecurity and citizens’ satisfaction with the action of security forces at subnational level. This will improve knowledge at this level and enable better targeting of actions in the region.
• Improve the safety and reception of victims in police and gendarmerie services.
• Allow a detailed analysis of the number of acts suffered and their nature and consequences according to the socio-demographic profiles of the victims. It should make it possible to identify ‘continuous violence’, such as violence between intimate partners and violence in the workplace, which can take different forms and for which periodic threats and attacks constitute only some elements of the situation. The survey will also measure ongoing victimisation over many years.

Outputs

Not yet available.

Description

The GENESE survey follows on from the thematic surveys whose aim is to measure and describe interpersonal violence, in particular domestic violence and sexual violence. Thanks to its innovative protocol, which combines different interrogation modes (internet, paper and telephone) to collect the responses of a very large sample, this survey will allow the SSMSI to meet the growing need for localised data. This will be achieved through the production of new indicators at local level, in addition to indicators at national level. The survey will also provide a detailed description of the victims and the attacks suffered.

The SSMSI teams should produce the first results in early 2022. The combination of these results with the data recorded by the security services will make it possible, as the SSMSI has done since its creation in 2014, to fuel the public debate on the issues of security and provide essential data to guide the design and evaluation of public policies.

Critical success factors

• The GENESE survey was awarded the general interest and statistical quality label from the National Council for Statistical Information.
• In the particular context of the overhaul of the survey on living environment and security, the GENESE survey provided information on the impact of multimode survey design on the collection of data related to victimisation and security.

Actors involved in the design and implementation of the practice

Eurostat’s working group on statistics on crime and criminal justice is behind the creation of a dedicated task force for the development of this survey. This task force is made up of representatives of the Member States, the Directorate-General of Justice, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the European Institute for Gender Equality and independent experts. It has met approximately twice a year since 2016. The SSMSI has participated in the task force since May 2018.

The Eurostat team that leads the working group delivered the final version of the questionnaire and the instructions for carrying out the project to the subsidised states in 2019.

FRA conducted the first EU-wide survey in 2014: Violence against women: An EU-wide survey. Main results report.

Monitoring and evaluation

Eurostat leads the project and a dedicated task force developed the survey questionnaire.

With regard to methodological aspects (collection method and sample to be interviewed), the SSMSI has set up a working group that is made up of experts in multimode surveys and from the ‘Surveys’ division of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies.

Publicly available contact details

• Website
• Email: ssmsi-communication@interieur.gouv.fr