This paper proposes an indicator of crime trends in France over the last few decades. This is achieved on the basis of the available national crime victim surveys after a thorough review of the prerequisites for such serialization. In order to ensure the soundness of this endeavor, further national surveys with a more or less similar focus, as well regional or local victim surveys are used. The contribution of this article is twofold: methodological with respect to the review of the problems to be solved in order to serialize data from victimization surveys; and substantial insofar as it can be used for monitoring medium-term crime trends.