Transforming the understandings of domestic violence through coercive control in France

This article examines the transformation of the understanding and response to domestic violence in France, drawing on two influential research fields: (1) social psychology’s social representations and social change theory, and (2) coercive control, a conceptualization of domestic violence as captivity, rather than assault. Experimental and legal evidence illustrates how conceptualizing domestic violence as coercive control impacts its social and legal understanding in France. Coercive control describes an ongoing pattern of gender-based domination that entraps women in personal lives. It recognizes the multidimensional nature, dynamics, and impacts of domestic violence as gender-based control over women’s rights and resources. It reframes domestic violence as a liberty crime, making concrete a social representation of domestic violence as a breach of women’s human rights, inseparable from its consequences on their children, in line with the women’s human rights perspective championed by the United Nations and binding legal instruments, such as the Council of Europe Istanbul Convention.