Anti-mass migration activist and former spokeswoman for the group Generation Identitaire Thaïs d’Escufon has reported that a North African man broke into her home and sexually assaulted her.
Ms d’Escufon stated that a North African man claiming to be Tunisian followed her home, taking advantage of the fact she was wearing earphones at the time to tack her unnoticed.
“The man surely stayed behind my back and rushed into the apartment as soon as I turned the key,” she told the newspaper, Le Figaro.
According to d’Escufon, the man told her, after assaulting her, that “I know that in France, you think that all Arabs are evil, I am not like that, I swear before God.”
He then picked up all his cigarette butts in order not to leave any traces of himself at her apartment.
Ms d’Escufon said she felt terrified but managed to call the police, saying she “was extremely lucky.”
Despite the French government dissolving Generation Identitaire earlier this year over hate allegations, Ms d’Escufon remains a social media influencer in France as well as an activist.
Sexual violence and sexual assault remain a major problem in parts of France, with a 2020 report claiming that in 2019 sexual violence had risen 12 per cent compared to the prior year.
“All French regions have experienced increases in the number of rapes, assaults, and sexual harassment recorded by the security forces in 2019, notably Corsica, Centre-Val-de-Loire, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, and Nouvelle-Aquitaine,” the French Interior Ministry statistics service SSMI stated.
As early as 2017, tech entrepreneurs launched an app in Paris warning users if they were in a “no-go” area and if they were at risk of being sexually assaulted.