In November 2023, 7-year-old twins were killed by their mother, who then committed suicide. In early May 2026, a young child died and his teenage brother was seriously injured. The father is suspected of shooting them during the night before taking his own life.

Due to the fragmentation of information, there is currently no database on these cases of filicide-suicide* in France. However, the failure to identify these cases prevents the development of strategies to prevent this type of domestic violence. It appears crucial to bring about a paradigm shift and take the first step toward recognizing this as a public health issue, for which the government, in particular, would be held accountable.

At a laboratory in Grenoble, a review of news reports made it possible to begin quantifying this phenomenon. In France, over the past ten years, 123 children have been killed by one of their parents before that parent committed or attempted suicide. Seventeen children survived such an attempted homicide. The average age of the child victims is 6½ years. As for the parents who committed these acts, 47% are women and 53% are men.

The National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) has highlighted how the violent deaths of children in France today remain a phenomenon that is both poorly documented and largely unknown.

To address this issue, a research team from Cerdap², comprising forensic pathologists, psychologists, and legal experts, conducted a study titled “A Criminological Study of Filicide-Suicide: Understanding to Prevent” with the support of the Robert Badinter Institute. The research protocol we implemented allowed us to analyze 19 cases drawn from the judicial archives of courts located in the southeastern quarter of France, dating from 2010 to 2024.

These acts of violence cannot be understood through simplistic explanations alone. A multidisciplinary analysis of these archives allows us both to identify high-risk patterns and to develop strategies for preventing such extreme acts of violence.

Perpetrators of filicide-suicide: Is there a psychological profile?

The image of a monster inevitably comes to mind when discussing a parent who kills their child before taking their own life. This monstrosity serves to reassure us that it is impossible for a “normal” person to commit such an act, yet at the same time, it hinders our understanding of it. However, filicide-suicide is neither an impulsive act nor solely a sign of psychiatric pathology; it is the result of three types of factors that our psychocriminological analysis of the case files has identified.

First, there are individual vulnerability factors: a history of psychological distress (depression, addictive behaviors, suicide attempts); a family history marked by deprivation or breakdowns; the creation of an idealized family model; a symbiotic bond with one’s spouse and child; and an intense focus on the parental role in an attempt to make amends for one’s own past.

We can then identify contextual risk factors: a rather conflict-ridden marital separation, tensions related to child custody, economic and social instability… This accumulation of losses, experienced in the year leading up to the incident, is accompanied by various signs of psychological distress (social isolation, obvious depressive symptoms, explicit suicidal intent) that were not adequately addressed by the individual’s close circle or the professionals they encountered during this period. These professionals most often include general practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers.

Finally, we must take into account triggering factors: certain events experienced in the weeks or even days leading up to the filicide-suicide—which confront the individual with the reality of loss (of a spouse, custody of a child, or a fulfilling social role)—create a psychological impasse and precipitate the act.

It is the interplay and combination of these factors, following a unique trajectory specific to each case, that make it possible for the act to be carried out.

Why is it important to understand the factors involved?

From a preventive perspective, these factors—even if they do not allow for a definitive prediction of the act—must be considered warning signs and, therefore, opportunities for intervention by professionals in the health, social services, educational, and legal fields, who may find themselves on the front lines when dealing with parents who are particularly vulnerable due to a separation—a situation that is all too often trivialized.

To this end, they must be prepared to better understand, identify, assess, and intervene early in family settings. As our research findings show, domestic violence is not universal, and cases legally classified as child abuse are even rarer.

Systemic “infantilism” at work in French society

Beyond an analysis of the parents’ individual life trajectories, our research demonstrates that the focus must also be placed on the children and their status within the family. The documents analyzed suggest that filicide-suicide should be viewed as a phenomenon reflecting the extreme escalation of a parent’s dominance over a child.

Such an approach requires adopting a theoretical framework based on the analysis of “infantilist” social relations.Infantilism, conceptualized in 1975 by Pierce and Allen, has been defined as a prejudice against children, based on the idea that they belong to adults and can—or even must—be controlled to serve adult needs. It is beginning to be addressed in recent French-language scholarship. These relationships do not necessarily manifest as overt violence, but can take the form of intense emotional investment, in which the child is viewed as an extension—or even the property—of the parent.

From this perspective, parental control can be part of socially valued emotional relationships, in which love, care, and protection coexist with a denial of the child as an individual; these feelings often make filicide inconceivable to those around the child.

Reflecting on the Fight Against Domestic Violence

While the fight against domestic violence against children has taken a back seat, our study calls for a critical examination of the family as an institution—its power dynamics, its unspoken assumptions, and its gray areas—so that we do not take for granted the structural power imbalances that can silence certain forms of distress or render certain risks invisible.

This involves rethinking the approaches to detection beyond simply identifying prior instances of violence against children, strengthening training for professionals in recognizing subtle warning signs, and developing an institutional capacity to ensure continuity and a cross-functional approach to both information gathering and support services. Preventing filicide-suicide therefore requires addressing psychological complexity, social realities, and institutional limitations as an integrated whole.

This collaborative research was authored by Sid Abdellaoui, Carole Berrih, Catherine Blatier, Jérôme Ferrand, Bénédicte Fischer, Amandine Fort, Amélie Imbert, Sandrine Irachabal, Lila Krebs-Drouot, Isabelle Nahmani, Laura Sauerbach, and Virginie Scolan.

* If you are in distress and/or having suicidal thoughts, or if you want to help someone who is suffering, you can call 3114.