Outcry over judicial missteps linked to missing girl prompts French government reckoning

PARIS, June 5 – French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu summoned the interior minister, the justice minister and others on Friday over the case of a missing 11-year-old girl that has sparked an outcry over judicial missteps and missed opportunities to intervene, the government said.

Lyhanna, currently identified only by her first name, was reported missing in her small southern French town of Fleurance on May 29 after she left her middle school in the afternoon.

The suspect arrested in the case, the father of one of her classmates, had been the subject of several complaints of sexual assault against children.

Political figures on the right and left, including far-right leader Jordan Bardella and Green leader Marine Tondelier, have seized upon the case as a demonstration of judicial dysfunction and failure to protect women and children from sexual violence.

“We have a family who is mourning. We cannot forget that,” Gregory Bobbato, the mayor of Fleurance, said in an interview with broadcaster BFM. “It’s a real dysfunction of the state, of France.”

In Fleurance, hundreds of volunteers participated in a search for Lyhanna after her disappearance. Authorities said on Thursday they have found a body that they are in the process of identifying.

“As a minister, I am terrified, and as a father, even more so, by this despicable tragedy that is unfolding,” Gerald Darmanin, the French justice minister, told reporters on Thursday evening.

He said the justice ministry and the interior ministry would conduct a joint investigation into the failures surrounding the complaints against the suspect, including a request by a local prosecutor’s office to perform an investigation into him that never took place.

The findings of the investigation will be made public and action will be taken, Darmanin said. REUTERS