"Safe seats" will be tested in Parisian transport

Faced with sexist and sexual violence, the Paris Transport Authority will set up "safe places" next September to offer shelter to victims of harassment and assault.

Faced with sexist and sexual violence, the Paris Transport Authority will set up "safe places" to offer shelter to victims of harassment and assault. Photo: Jacques Paquier/via Wikinews (CC)

Employees of bakeries, grocery stores, restaurants or even shops located on the metro and RER routes will be trained on the behavior to be adopted with victims of gender and sexual violence in public transport.

These places will thus serve as refuges, also called "safe places" where staff are prepared to reassure and inform a person in an unsafe situation

"Safe places" are listed on the Umay start-up's app.

The application, which is widely deployed in France with more than 6,000 places listed (including 300 in Paris), but also in England, allows users both to identify places of refuge for free, but also to report a feeling of insecurity, harassment, aggression or domestic violence.

The first "safe places" for Parisian transport will see the light of day at the beginning of the school year, at the Auber station on the RER A line and the Opéra station on lines 3, 7 and 8 of the Paris Metro.

According to a study by the Paris Region Institute, more than 2,500 sexist attacks were recorded in 2020 in Parisian transport. Nine out of ten victims (90%) were women and half (50%) of them were under 25.

In an attempt to reassure its users, Île-de-France Mobilités launched an alert number in 2019, 3117, and in 2021 trained all its agents in receiving victims.

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