⁍ GPS-tracking devices detect when an abuser gets too close and trigger an alert to a private security firm.

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⁍ Such systems are already in use in Spain and the United States and have been piloted in Britain and Australia.

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⁍ France has one of Europe’s highest femicide rates and 146 women were killed by their partner or a former partner in the country last year.

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– “If the abuser is very angry and determined he will kill all the same and commit suicide right after, as happens in many of these cases,’ says a spokeswoman for Paris-based activist group Feminicides par compagnons ou ex (women killed by their partner or ex). “The electronic bracelets will prevent absolutely nothing.” That’s what women’s rights activists are saying about GPS-tracking devices being tested in France, which has one of the highest femicide rates in Europe and saw 146 women killed by their partners or former partners last year, reports the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The devices, similar to tags used to keep tabs on sex offenders, detect when an abuser gets too close and trigger an alert to a private security firm, which tells him to back off. If the man refuses, police are called. Such systems are already in use in Spain and the United States and have been piloted in Britain and Australia. But women’s activists and researchers say the technology has limitations. “If the abuser is very angry and determined he will kill all the same and commit suicide right after, as happens in many of these cases,’ says the spokeswoman for Feminicides par compagnons ou ex. There is also evidence that GPS-tracked men tend to stay away from their victims and that the devices help prosecutors bring perpetrators to justice. President Emmanuel Macron has also pledged to create 1,000 new places in emergency shelters and improve police training amid rising femicide numbers.