The Albany Gazette - France probes judicial 'dysfunction' after girl's suspected murder

"It is clear that there has been a dysfunction," President Emmanuel Macron said in Montenegro where he was attending a European summit. "It's unacceptable."

He said he had urged Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu's government to investigate what had gone wrong at a cabinet meeting on Friday.

A girl, named in the press only as Lyhanna, went missing on May 29 near the southwestern village of Fleurance after she was last seen getting into a man's car.

After days of combing the countryside, investigators found the body of a child wearing the same clothes as her in an abandoned silo on Thursday. Formal identification is under way.

A 41-year-old father of two, whose daughter was a school friend of Lyhanna, has been detained as the key suspect.

Incomprehension has grown nationwide after it emerged the suspect had twice previously been formally accused of raping a child, but the investigations had either been dropped or stalled.

Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin was, according to his team, to summon all public prosecutors in Paris on Monday morning.

- Wider problem -

Prosecutor Clemence Meyer on Wednesday listed the previous complaints against the suspect.

In December 2017, a mother reported that her 17-year-old daughter was in a relationship with the man. The case was dropped in 2018 after the girl said she had consented.

In January 2022, a complaint accused him of raping a child younger than 15 in 2020 at his home in southwestern France. The case was dismissed in 2024 for lack of evidence.

In a third case, on August 22, 2025, the mother of a girl born in 2014 accused him of raping her child between September 2024 and May 2025 at his home, the prosecutor said.

But police still had not questioned him when 11-year-old Lyhanna disappeared nine months later.

The mayor of Fleurance Gregory Bobbato on Thursday there was something deeply wrong with the way investigations were conducted.

"Must we always wait for fully established evidence to be produced before finally doing something to protect our children?"

Denis Roth-Fichet, of an independent commission into the sexual abuse of children called CIVIISE, told AFP the case was illustrative of a much wider problem.

He said investigations were dropped in almost three out of four complaints for alleged sexual abuse of a minor.

Only seven percent of complaints for sexual assault of a minor and three percent of those for rape of a child result in a conviction, according to the CIVIISE.

- 'Check this man's computer' -

Candidates for next year's presidential elections have also weighed in.

Centrist hopeful Edouard Philippe on Thursday called for investigations to be sped up to better protect children.

"When a child's testimony is collected or reported, why doesn't the entire state apparatus immediately go on alert?" he asked.

Far-right contender Jordan Bardella, who has been leading in the opinion polls and will run if Marine Le Pen is banned from office, said the crime "could have been -- should have been -- avoided".

Anne-Cecile Mailfert, of the Women's Foundation activist group, earlier this week said the judicial system was failing in protecting children -- even when a young child was brave enough to speak up and file a legal complaint with her parents.

"The system doesn't work," she said.

Michele Creoff, of the Union for Childhood association, was also indignant.

"Did anyone go and check this man's computer? The websites he visits?" she asked.

burs-ah/yad

(O.Robinson--TAG)