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France’s President Emmanuel Macron condemned “unacceptable” lapses within the judicial system on Friday over an 11-year-old girl’s killing, after it emerged that the main suspect was previously accused of sexually abusing children.
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A girl, named in the press only as Lyhanna, went missing on 29 May near the southwestern town 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 in the nearby village of Puycasquier 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.
It emerged he had twice previously been formally accused of raping a child, but the investigations had either been dropped or stalled.
“It is clear that there has been a dysfunction,” Macron said in Montenegro where he was attending a European summit. “It’s unacceptable.”
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu told his justice, interior and budget ministers at an emergency meeting he was “particularly shocked” by the case and requested initial findings of an administrative probe be submitted to him within two weeks, his office said.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin was, according to his team, to summon all public prosecutors in Paris on Monday morning.
In Puycasquier, where the body was found, mayor Louis Turchi told the AFP news agence that the village was in shock.
“It’s terrible. The community is stunned and so am I,” he said.
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. 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 said 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 on the sexual abuse of children called CIVIISE, told AFP the case was illustrative of a much wider problem.
Investigations are dropped for almost three out of four complaints for alleged sexual abuse of a minor, he said.
Only 7% of complaints for sexual assault of a minor, and 3% 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.
Centre-right hopeful Edouard Philippe, a former premier, on Thursday called for investigations to be sped up to better protect children.
After a child’s testimony, “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-Cécile Mailfert, of the Women’s Foundation activist group, said earlier this week the judicial system was failing in protecting children, even when a child was brave enough to speak up.
“The system doesn’t work,” she said.
Michèle Crèoff, of the Union for Childhood association, was also indignant.
“Did anyone go and check this man’s computer? The websites he visits?” she asked.
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