A Brazilian tourist who thought she would be safe in France says she no longer dares leave her home after a shocking attempted rape by an Arab attacker on a morning commuter train.
The victim, Jhordana, had boarded the train in Paris to travel to Juvisy-sur-Orge in Val-de-Marne on Wednesday morning, where she had recently moved to live with her brother. At Choisy-le-Roi station around 8:30 a.m., most passengers got off, leaving the carriage empty. Believing she was alone, she soon realized a man had been staring at her. He briefly stepped off the train but then returned as the doors closed, leaving only the two of them inside.
“He walked towards me without speaking. I was panicking, I stood up,” she told Le Parisien through her brother, who translated her account. “Then he pushed me, still without a word. I tried to escape but he pulled down my pants. It’s clear he was trying to rape me.”
The attacker bit her on the lip when she resisted, slapped her, and groped her buttocks and breasts. When she tried to call for help, he placed his hand around her throat to stop her from screaming. “He choked me to silence me. That’s when I felt like I had no more strength,” Jhordana recalled. “I saw myself dying.”
🇫🇷‼️ A Brazilian tourist was subjected to a vicious sexual assault on a French train on Wednesday morning, and only escaped being raped thanks to the intervention of a brave woman who filmed the assailant to scare him off.
Jhordana, 26, had been visiting her brother in Paris.… pic.twitter.com/pxOTu4fZXf
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 19, 2025A fellow female passenger who heard her screams intervened, stopping the attack and filming the suspect as he fled onto the platform. Remix News has published the footage showing a middle-aged woman demanding the attacker stay on the train and wait for the authorities.
The end of the footage shows the assailant exit the train at the next stop and proceed to run away on foot.
“I don’t have enough words to thank her,” Jhordana said of the woman. “What would have happened if she hadn’t come while he was strangling me? I might have died.”
Police have launched an investigation into the attack, but at the time of writing, the suspect remains at large.
“The fact that he’s out there makes me very nervous. I don’t dare go out anymore,” Jhordana said. “I also think about all the women he could attack in the coming days. I’m convinced that he’s done this before, and will do it again.”
Her brother Cicero said they were shocked such an attack could happen in France. “As Brazilians, we would never have believed that something like this could happen here,” he said. Jhordana added that she had assumed public transport would be safe in a developed country: “We are told that France is a highly developed country, but I don’t see anything here that truly protects women from assaults on public transport. On Wednesday, I was left to my own devices.”
She pointed out that in Brazilian cities, women-only carriages are common. “Nothing here truly protects women from assault on public transport,” she said. “I don’t know if I want to stay in France after this.”
Her concerns come amid growing alarm over the safety of women on French buses and trains. According to the National Observatory on Violence against Women (Miprof), the number of victims of sexual violence on public transport has risen by 86 percent in the last 10 years. In 2024 alone, 3,374 people were victims of sexual violence on public transport – 6 percent more than in 2023 and 9 percent more than in 2022.
Women make up 91 percent of victims, and three-quarters of them are under 30. Forty-four percent of all victims are in the Paris region. The data also shows that foreigners are disproportionately represented in such crimes: 63 percent of those arrested for sexual assault and 92 percent of those arrested for petty theft on public transport in 2019 were foreign nationals.
“While most violence against women is committed by members of their close circle, the fact remains that public spaces, and particularly public transport networks, remain places where women are exposed to sexist and sexual violence as soon as they enter them,” said Miprof Secretary General Roxana Maracineanu.
Figures published in September from the French agency INSEE show that 64 percent of violent robberies, physical assaults and sexual violence on public transport in Paris are committed by foreigners, with North Africans – who represent just 3.4 percent of the population – accounting for 43 percent. Across France, foreigners were responsible for 41 percent of such crimes in 2024.
🇫🇷🚨 Sexual violence against women on French public transport has increased 86% since 2016, according to new data released today from the National Observatory on Violence against Women (Miprof)
A disproportionate number of foreign nationals are involved in such crime.… pic.twitter.com/ZAIea5CJpm
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) March 10, 2025A majority of women in the Paris region now say they feel unsafe on public transport — 56 percent reported being afraid to use the rail network, and 80 percent said they remain constantly on alert.
