A YouGov poll of six western European countries — Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain — has found that large majorities of respondents believe crime is increasing in their home countries, even though overall crime rates across the region have been falling since the mid-1990s. In France, 78% of those surveyed thought crime had risen, and 77% believed violent crime was up, yet the country's murder rate has dropped from roughly 2.3 per 100,000 people in 1995 to around 1.4 per 100,000 today. Experts say the gap between perception and reality is driven by high-profile coverage of gang-related drug violence and increased reporting of sexual and domestic abuse, which overshadow a long-term general decline in crime that Eurostat data confirms across the region.