Murder in Paris: The profile of a crime

Paris is far from being the murder capital of France, that title tends to go to Marseille or Corsica, but people are killed each year in the City of Light.

A study, released on Wednesday by the National Observatory of Crime and Criminal Responses, examines murder cases in Paris and the surrounding departments of Val-de-Marne, Hauts-de-Seine and Seine-Saint-Denis, reports Le Parisien newspaper.

It sheds some light on who the victims are, where and how they killed as well as when.

Between 2007 and 2013, 602 homicides were recorded across all four areas, of which 226 were in the capital – although the numbers have been falling since 2010, from 103 in that year to 95 the following year, 78 in 2012 and 73 last year.

Here we delve into the darker side of the City Of Light and look at ten facts about murder in Paris.

• Saturday night is the prime homicide time, with 97 percent of murders in Paris committed on this day.

• Victims are most likely to be men, aged 25-34.

• Men are ten times more likely to commit murder – 91 percent of perpetrators are male and only nine percent female – and likely to be aged 25-34.

• Getting into a fight is the fastest way to get yourself killed, with 34 percent of murders the result of altercations. Half of these cases involved people who knew each other.

• Foreign residents of the capital and its suburbs are more likely to be victims, at 49 percent of the total.

• Only 19 percent of homicides are related to criminal activity.

• Victims are as likely to be killed in public as in private, with the split being 49 to 51 percent for the latter.

• Those killed in a private space, are overwhelmingly likely to be murdered in their  own house, with 82 percent of killings behind closed doors occurring in the victim's home. These victims are overwhelmingly female. Domestic violence accounts for 28 percent of murders in the French capital.

• Of murders committed in public, the biggest proportion – 35 percent – are on the highway.

• The majority of killings are carried out with a weapon – 64 percent. Knives or sharp objects commonly found in the home are used in 34 percent of domestic cases, but when it comes to murders committed in the name of the settling of accounts, a gun is used in 86 percent of cases.