Number of homicides within couples in France 2006-2021

In France, the number of women killed by their spouse has fluctuated, but overall has decreased since 2006. There were 148 in that year, compared to 122 in 2021. Spikes in the number of deaths of women by their partners were also recorded for the years 2007, 2012 and 2019. The women most affected in 2021 were those over 70 years old. For men, the number of deaths has generally fluctuated between 21 and 34 in this time, although the lowest figures were recorded in more recent years.
The Ministry of the Interior specifies that violent deaths within a couple fall under three different penal qualifications: murder, which is the fact of voluntarily killing another person; assassination, which is a murder committed with premeditation; and cases where voluntary violence led to an unintentional death.