It all commenced on April 22, 2019, when Anaïs Leleux mentioned on Twitter that she was accompanied after which bodily burdened through a man, first on an escalator after which at her seat on a Métro platform in Paris. She managed to run away.
Leleux decided now not to name the RATP emergency wide variety because, she stated, “this isn’t always a committed line. You can call it for the theft of your handbag or something. On the other give up of the road, there are not any retailers trained especially to deal with these troubles”.
She had previously experienced comparable episodes of sexual intimidation, so she became determined to record this incident. She sooner or later found a RATP agent and gave him a detailed report. But he apparently said he hears the identical tale every day and the report could now not be of a good deal use.
Leleux then determined to contact RATP customer support directly on Twitter. A network supervisor answered that she should report a complaint and brought that “if no criticism is filed, the video surveillance pix cannot be tested and this example is in all likelihood to recur”.
Leleux was short to tweet her reaction: “Guilt of the victim’s episode 47799900. If this case is repeated, it is because this guy is a predator and RATP is incompetent. Certainly no longer due to me.”
Leleux is a member of NousToutes, a community combating against gender-based totally and sexual violence. With fellow members, she staged a protest on April 24 starting on the Paris Métro station Filles-du-Calvaire, definitely chosen because of its call being connected to ladies’ suffering. They have been prepared with posters that up to date the names of certain Métro stations. Port-Royal has become Porc-Royal. Père-Lachaise becomes transformed into Perverts-Lachaise. They additionally released the hashtag #BalanceTonMetro – a reference to the French model of #MeToo, which is referred to as #BalanceTonPorc (#DenounceYourPig). And then the often harrowing memories began to pour in.
‘I become 12 years vintage’
One internet person stated how she turned into sexually abused for the primary time in a tram in Lille. “While I had my school bag on my lap, a person sitting next to me sporting a healthy and tie slipped his hand underneath my bag to caress my thigh. I was 12 years antique.”
This is an enjoy that echoes that of any other person who defined that she obtained her “the first kiss at the mouth” at the age of 14 from an “old guy who changed into behaving disgustingly in a crowded educate”.
Twitter users also puzzled RATP responses after they pronounced assaults. One advised of ways she became left understanding that her assailant changed into often at the identical teach but that the RATP might do not anything approximately it: “Yesterday, I pronounced a person’s verbal assault to an agent. I changed into able to take a picture of him, so I should show his face after I desired to describe him. Answer: We understand him, your forestall is his forestall too. But there’s not anything we can do approximately it. Reassuring!”
A 2017 survey carried out with the aid of the Institut d’aménagement et urbanism, the local enterprise governing all elements of urban existence, revealed that one in ladies changed into afraid on public shipping. And it turns out they have a proper cause. In the Île-de-France region (which the region of Paris and extra Paris), one hundred% of lady public delivery customers document having been sufferers of gender-based total harassment or sexual assault at the least once in their lives, in keeping with consultations performed in 2015 by using the French High Council for Equality.
‘RATP ought to guarantee my protection’
The NousToutes organization does not intend to prevent the Twitter marketing campaign. “As a carrier, RATP must guarantee my safety, they have got a duty to acquire effects. There is this contract between us from the instant I buy my price ticket,” explains Leleux, based totally on France’s Napoleonic civil code. She says that her lawyer is currently running on a civil summons for RATP with the intention to be given to the enterprise with the aid of a bailiff.
RATP said it meant to protect the lawsuit, telling FranceInfo: “It isn’t always proper to say that we aren’t doing something. RATP is strongly devoted to offering perfect situations for a true journey.
“We have extra than 50,000 practical cameras, five,300 dealers in stations, 1,000 protection dealers on the community. And all of those sellers are trained in how to care for sufferers of sexual harassment as a part of a module organized via Miprof (a government undertaking for the protection of ladies sufferers of violence and the combat against humans trafficking).”
