PARIS: A total of 121 women were killed by their partner or former partner in France last year, equating to one death every three days, government figures showed on Wednesday. The numbers were made public just days after the French government announced it would hold a major consultation on domestic violence in order to stamp out gender-based murder and violence against women. Collated by a unit of the interior ministry responsible for liaising with victims, the figure was slightly lower than a year earlier when 130 women died after suffering domestic violence but similar to 2016, when there were 123 deaths. Out of the 121 cases, 26 were classed as murder, 85 as manslaughter and 10 deaths occurred when women succumbed to injuries sustained during an attack. So far this year, 76 women have died as a result of “femicide” — murder at the hands of a husband or partner.