The murder of the Algerian Chahinez by her husband a week ago shocked both in Algeria and in France, provoking the same reactions of indignation and condemnation everywhere.
Even if many in France are once again the wrong target, pointing the finger at the origins of the murderer instead of attacking a social phenomenon that is not the prerogative of any community, domestic violence or violence made to women.
The 31-year-old victim died under appalling circumstances. Her executioner, also Algerian, wanted to make her suffer. The circumstances of the tragedy are now known to all, after the confession made by the murderer before the police and the courts.
The murder is premeditated, meticulously prepared. Tuesday, May 4, Mounir, 44, goes to his wife’s home, from whom he is separated, and patiently waits for her to come home.
Once there, he shot her several times with a rifle, and while she was lying on the ground, still alive, he sprinkled her with gasoline and then set her on fire. He did the same with the house he filmed in flames to post the video on social networks.
The French press has devoted large spaces to the drama, delving into the couple’s life and their past. Thanks to the information provided by the prosecution, the portraits of the victim and the murderer are drawn up and the plot of their tormented history.
Chahinez arrived from Algeria five years ago with her two children from a previous marriage. Mounir is a convict who has spent several periods in prison for acts of violence and theft.
In June 2020, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, 9 of which were suspended, for domestic violence. The victim is always Chahinez. He was released in December of the same year, with the obligation to take care of himself and not to come near his wife. A measure he has never respected, roaming the neighborhood where she lives.
39 femicides in France in just 4 months
In all that has been reported concerning this affair, a detail could not escape the fascosphere. “Chahinez was not free. Her husband wanted her to live like a Frenchwoman in France, while her husband wanted her to live like an Algerian in Algeria.”
The phrase, lent by Le Figaro to “a source close to the file” is in the headlines by the newspaper and then widely repeated, in particular by a well-known part of France, the one who is used to blaming everything immigration.
Sufficient to trigger an outburst of amalgamation as we are used to with each terrorist attack or reprehensible act committed by an immigrant or foreign individual, especially the Maghreb or a Muslim.
On other social networks, comments implicating Islam, Algeria, Sharia, Arabs, the Maghreb, immigrants, abound.
However, there are many shortcomings in this affair that deserve our attention.
“She knew she was in danger”, testify the relatives of the victim. The young woman did not benefit from a very dangerous telephone and her husband was not put on an electronic bracelet despite his background and his wife’s complaints.
Justice has announced that it will look into these dysfunctions because that is the real problem. What good are laws and procedures if they are not applied? In the case of Chahinez, if the authorities had done what they had to do, according to the law, the tragedy could perhaps have been avoided.
The opportunity for the extreme right to try to recover the case for its own benefit, in particular this story of Bracelet. It is true that the president of the National Front (RN), Marine Le Pen, did not take the opportunity this time to develop her anti-immigrant rhetoric.
But she did not prevent herself from using the drama to settle accounts with the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupont-Moretti, candidate for regional in Hauts-de-France, on ” the land ” of Ms. Le Pen.
” Eric Dupond-Moretti’s obsession with me is starting to become relatively strange (…) It seems that there are a few anti-reconciliation bracelets left, I’m a taker, ” she quipped.
Another subject that should not be overshadowed by anti-immigrant clichés is the phenomenon of femicides.
The 39 such murders that have been committed in France in the past four months alone, and those more numerous in other Western countries, clearly show that domestic violence has no nationality or religion.
Mounir killed his wife not because he is Algerian or Muslim, but because he is a violent husband, a delinquent, a deranged man.
