Is Bordeaux the most dangerous city in France? Not really, according to the police and the researchers

Each year, the Ministry of the Interior issues its delinquency figures in France. Several media make it an interpretation to establish a classification of the most dangerous cities in the country. One of them recently placed Bordeaux at the top of his record. But what really is behind the figures?

A few days ago, at the beginning of July, a study of the Ville-Data website, taken up by several information and entertainment sites, notes that Bordeaux is the most dangerous city in France. It is based on figures from ministerial statistical services, published each year in March, on a national, regional and municipal scale.

Like this website, several media take it every year. But the reading grids of these figures are multiple: According to the interpretation, Bordeaux would not be the most dangerous city in France.

This “municipal statistical base of delinquency” brings together all the crimes and crimes, with the exception of road crimes, recorded by the police and the gendarmerie in 2024. They are distributed for each municipality, in around fifteen categories. Bordeaux figures, Ville-Data has extracted a “crime rate”: around 95 crimes and crimes for 1,000 inhabitants in Bordeaux last year. The sleeping beauty thus comes at the top of cities with more than 22,500 inhabitants, considered “most dangerous“. Trink, according to the national police.

But qualifying a city of “dangerous”, based on the crime rate, it is inappropriate.

Eric Krust

Interdepartmental deputy director of the national police

First, because this crime rate is indeed calculated based only on the population of Bordeaux estimated at 250,000 inhabitants, and not of the agglomeration, estimated at 800,000 people. It therefore does not take into account the attractiveness of the city, which welcomes thousands of exterior inhabitants every day. “”The city of Bordeaux is automatically penalized because it aggregates most of the cultural, tourist and festive poles. By this attractiveness, it also centralizes the majority of delinquency within the urban area “, explains Eric Krust, the interdepartmental deputy director of the national police.

Difficult therefore to compare one metropolis to another by ignoring this data. Eric Krust thus takes the example of Toulouse, which concentrates 60 % of the population of the urban area, compared to 30 % for Bordeaux. “”The crime rate for 1,000 inhabitants is automatically diluted since there are more inhabitants “, notes the director of the national police in Gironde.

Also, still according to the interdepartmental deputy director of the national police, only a certain number of “items”, name given to the offenses “The most serious”, really characterize the dangerousness of a city. However, this crime rate includes everything. “There are homicides, of course, but also the person who was defrauded 200 euros because he gave his bank card to a website“Adds Eric Krust. Details invisible by the simplification of study figures.

According to the latest data from the National Police in Bordeaux, so -called “public road delinquency” has increased 7.3% over the last twelve months. A significant figure, essentially boosted by an increase in shooting flights (+ 8%) and thefts on the trailer, committed in vehicles (+ 13%). “”These crimes nourish the feeling of insecurityadmits the deputy director, But do not participate in the danger of a city.“

Conversely, the figures for damage to physical integrity, the image of intra -family physical violence or sexual violence, depict a completely different trend. In addition to 7%nationally, the latter remain stable in 2024 in Bordeaux with 733 complaints identified, against 799 in 2023. The use of narcotics (+ 7.5%) and its traffic (+ 2.8%), “which contribute to the overall danger of the city“, According to the deputy director of the DIPN, are increasing at the rate of national trends.

An evolution, which can also be partly attributed to the activity of the police and gendarmerie services, as well as to “local policies“, According to Renée Zauberman, director of research emeritus at the CNRS and responsible for the scientific observatory on crime and justice.

In Bordeaux, certain sectors are for example the subject of special attention, with four local delinquency treatment groups, on part of the Saint-Michel district, Saint-Paul, the Capuchins and the forecourt of the station. These local groups apply a more severe policy with greater repression and surveillance.

The fact remains that these data, compared only to those of the previous year, pose a major problem according to researchers able to delinquency. Renée Zauberman is categorical: “What matters is evolution over long time.“

Take the example of thefts without violence in Bordeaux. Between 2023 and 2024, they increased by 233 units. A constantly increased figure if we have observed the evolution for 5 years. But by widening the spectrum, the curve shows another trend: flights without violence return mainly to their level of eight years ago.

Another key element: the number of complaints filed, on which the ministry figures are based in particular. However, many crimes and crimes are not reported or declared, thus distorting the reading of real insecurity.

A whole part of delinquency is unknown to recordings, because citizens do not bring it back.

Renate Spellman

Research director emeritus at CNRS and responsible for the scientific observatory on crime and justice

The tools, to facilitate the procedures are particularly important to explain the number of complaints. In Bordeaux, the experimentation of the online complaint, launched at the end of 2023, a year before the rest of the country, precisely revealed a very strong increase in daily appropriation offenses, the destruction and infrastructure degradations such as bicycle or tags (+ 18.4%). “”A black figure, unknown before “assures the interdepartmental deputy director, Eric Krust.

In fact, many offenses escape the authorities. According to a survey “experienced and felt in terms of security” published in 2022 by the ministerial statistics department, only 1 in 5 victim files a complaint for the person involvement.

So to establish as closely as possible a radiography of delinquency in France, Renée Zauberman and his colleagues have been based for several years on these so -called victimization surveys, sociological surveys with a panel of people in the fact of filed complaint or not following a crime or a crime suffered, as well as the feeling of insecurity felt. “These are surveys carried out as close as possible to the act committee“Explains the researcher.

Thanks to these polls and the police and gendarmerie recordings, the researchers establish trends in crime and insecurity, closer to reality.

Via this methodology, it has emerged since the 1980s that the most violent offenses “have very low changes, in the order of one to two homicides per 100,000 inhabitants for exampleNote Renou Spellman. Overall, a certain number of very serious violence have increased, but they remain extremely rare compared to the number of inhabitants.“

All of the figures used come from the interstats site of the Ministry of the Interior, from the data transmitted by the national police in Bordeaux, as well as those from the latest surveys conducted according to the methodology of the scientific observatory of crime and justice – piloted by the Center for Sociological Research on the Law and Criminal Institutions of the CNRS.