Violence against women in France

Martin Dumollard (June 22, 1810 − March 8, 1862) was a French serial killer condemned to the guillotine after having been arrested and charged with the deaths of maids from 1855 to 1861. His victims were approached in Lyon by Dumollard, who offered them a nice house in Côtière. Convinced, they would eventually follow him and, during their wanderings on foot, he attacked them. All twelve assaults or attempted assaults occurred in the late 1850s and early 1860s until that of Marie Pichon on May 28, 1861. He was quickly arrested, along with his wife and accomplice, Marie-Anne Martinet, who stole the personal belongings and used them for resale. Their trial took place from January 29 to February 1, 1862: Dumollard was sentenced to death and his wife, twenty years of penal labour. This affair, which preceded that of Joseph Vacher by about thirty years, had a great repercussion in France; it is often considered one of the first cases of a serial killer in France. Dumollard is notably mentioned in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

Hélène Pastor (31 March 1937 – 21 May 2014) was a Monegasque businesswoman and heiress. She headed what is seen as Monaco’s ‘second dynasty’, and was the richest woman in the principality. She was assassinated by a gang that included her son-in-law, who was subsequently jailed for life in 2018.

Jacqueline Sauvage (27 December 1947 — 23 July 2020) of Montargis, France, killed her husband Norbert Marot by shooting him in the back three times with a hunting rifle on 10 September 2012. This occurred the day after Sauvage's son committed suicide. Sauvage stated that Mr Marot had physically and sexually abused his wife, daughters and possibly his son.A criminal case was then filed against Mrs. Sauvage, that resulted in her being condemned to ten years in jail by a cour d'assises. She then filed an appeal motion, but the verdict remained unchanged, pronounced on 3 December 2015. On 31 January 2016, the French president François Hollande announced his giving a partial presidential pardon to Mrs Sauvage. This resulted in a reduction of her jail time of two years and nine months. On 28 December 2016, M. Hollande pronounced a full pardon, announced both on his personal Twitter account and by a release made by the Elysée. This decision led to Mrs Sauvage's immediate release from the detention centre of Réau.

Samira Bellil (24 November 1972 – 4 September 2004) was a French feminist activist and a campaigner for the rights of girls and women.
Bellil became famous in France with the publication of her autobiographical book Dans l'enfer des tournantes ('In the hell of the "tournantes" (gang-rapes) in 2002. The book discusses the violence she and other young women endured in the predominantly North African and Arab immigrant outskirts of Paris, where she was repeatedly gang-raped as a teenager by gangs led by people she knew, and then abandoned by her family and friends.
The book is available in English (translated by Lucy R. McNair) as To Hell and Back: The Life of Samira Bellil.