On the morning of January 1, 2021, the last revelers were strolling through the southern city of Toulon, some of them lounging on La Mitre beach to soak up the afterglow of a night out in celebration of the New Year. Unseen, a few yards away, lay Odile Nasri. A few hours earlier, the 50-year-old woman had decided to end her life. At dawn, she went down to the beach near her home for one last walk. At 9 am, a passerby found her unconscious. She was taken to hospital, where her heart gave out around midday.

"Her husband was at the hospital, but he didn't let us know until an hour after her death. Nor had he informed us that he hadn't heard from her for almost 24 hours," said Fadila Nasri, Odile's sister. "Everything still seems surreal to me... this tragic end is the antithesis of the lively, bubbly, smiling and very independent person that everyone knew," said the 55-year-old teacher. "My sister and I shared everything: parties, outings, studies. And then she met her ex-husband. He's the one who locked her up in a evil, toxic environment and isolated her from everyone."

The police report states that Odile died of "drug intoxication" and "hypothermia". Along with her three brothers, Messaoud, Karim and Francis, Fadila decided to lodge a complaint in June 2021. Three months later, France's first judicial investigation into "forced suicide" was opened. "The road is long," said Fadila, "but I'll go all the way, I'll fight for her."

France has become the first country in Europe and only the second in the world to recognize forced suicide as a crime. Harassment by a partner or former partner that has led the victim to take their own lives or attempt suicide became an offense enshrined in law on July 30, 2020. It is now punishable by 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of €150,000.

This new article 222-33-2-1 of the French Penal Code criminalizes one of the hidden faces of femicide. "Forced suicides correspond to situations where a partner – in the majority of cases, a woman – is the victim of physical and/or psychological violence, and sees no other way out than to end her life," said Yael Mellul, a lawyer specializing in domestic violence, who has made forced suicide her focus for the past 15 years. For her, this law fills "a legal void" and recognizes what she calls a "societal scourge".

At the end of 2022, suicides following harassment by a partner or ex-partner were recorded in this letter from the French National Observatory on Violence Against Women. In 2021, 648 people in this situation died by suicide or attempted to take their lives. In 2022 the number was 759 according to Interior Ministry figures, which also show that victims are almost exclusively women. These figures are vastly higher than the 118 femicides counted in 2022.

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