The suicides cause almost three times more deaths each year than the road in France: 220,000 people attempt suicide, and 10,000 die. Suicide mortality is the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds, just after road accidents and the leading cause of death among 25-34 year olds. Deaths by suicide concern three times more men than women.
Our country has one of the highest suicide rates in Europe, more than double that of the United Kingdom or Spain, for example. Created under the Minister of Social Affairs and Health, Marisol Touraine, the new Observatory will have “the mission of improving knowledge of the mechanisms leading to suicides and better coordinating and exploiting the various existing data. It will also have to evaluate public policies for the fight against suicide, and produce recommendations, particularly in the field of prevention”, specifies the ministry.
It will bring together twice a year the representatives of the seven ministries concerned, institutional actors (State operators and health insurance funds), parliamentarians, as well as researchers, health professionals from various disciplines and representatives of associations. It will establish an annual report which “will strive to establish a thematic focus each year”.
An Observatory to fill in statistical gaps
Jean-Claude Delgenes, director of Technologia, a firm specializing in the prevention of occupational risks, welcomed this progress this morning at the microphone of Europe 1: “A considerable step forward because it will make up for our statistical delay. To prevent, it is necessary to know: the current statistics are 2 to 3 years late! It is assumed that there are more suicides linked to the crisis when it cannot be demonstrated. In other countries, we can. We cannot link suicide and over-indebtedness, professional estrangement, job loss. There are lots of studies to be done. On the ground, we see more passages to the act, an inflection. But we do not find it in the statistical curves. »
The creation of the Observatory had been demanded in 2011 by 44 specialists, including the geneticist Axel Kahn, the psychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik and the president of the association France prevention suicide Michel Debout, who had signed an appeal on the site of the daily Liberation.
