Femicide: The murders giving Europe a wake-up call.

On 1 September, a resident of Cagnes-sur-Mer in the south of France spotted a foot sticking out from a pile of rubbish, branches and an old quilt.

It was the disfigured body of a woman, the victim of a brutal attack. Her partner denies her murder.
Salomé, 21, could be France's 100th victim this year of "femicide" - usually defined as the murder of a woman by a partner, ex-partner or family member. The day after Salomé's body was found, a 92-year-old woman was caned to death by her 94-year-old husband.

Within hours, the French government announced a raft of measures to protect women from domestic violence. Other European countries have already reacted to a crime that knows no borders or social class, but the picture across the continent is mixed.

A woman, who had endured decades of abuse from her violent husband, had finally built up the courage to leave him. She had asked a police officer to accompany her home so she could collect some belongings, but the officer refused, insisting he needed a judicial order to intervene.

He was wrong, but the helpline had no legal authority and the operator could only direct the victim to a support group.

Homicides by intimate partners are overwhelmingly committed by men against women. According to the most recent figures of such murders, the French rate is far from the highest in the EU.

'Society still blames the woman'

Finland, held up as a beacon of gender equality, also has one of the EU's highest murder rates at the hands of an intimate partner.

"In Nordic countries, women's equal rights are protected in the public sphere but not in the private sphere," Paivi Naskali, a professor of Gender Studies at the University of Lapland, told Open Democracy in 2013.

"The welfare state has given many rights to women, but this policy has concentrated on the labour market... not equality in private life," she said.

Source: BBC