NEWS: France
Murder of 12-year-old girl sparks far-right backlash

The mur­der of a 12-year-old girl whose body was found inside a plas­tic boot sent a “deep shock” to France, where far-right law­mak­ers used the girl’s death to politi­cize it to attack the gov­ern­men­t’s immi­gra­tion poli­cies. It came to be accused of using it for

Paris pros­e­cu­tors last saw a girl (iden­ti­fied only as Lau­ra by author­i­ties) alive on sur­veil­lance cam­eras in an apart­ment in north­east Paris at 15:15 local time (9:15 U.S. time). said in a state­ment on Monday.

Gov­ern­ment spokesman Olivi­er Ver­an told reporters on Wednes­day that red ink was print­ed on the soles of the vic­tims’ feet, detail­ing the inci­dent in which France “faced ter­ror and pain and was deeply shocked,” accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press. It was revealed that the num­bers 0 and 1 were writ­ten in.

An autop­sy found Lau­ra’s cause of death to be “car­diopul­monary insuf­fi­cien­cy with symp­toms of asphyx­ia” and signs of cer­vi­cal com­pres­sion, the pros­e­cu­tor’s state­ment added.

The Paris pros­e­cu­tor’s office said on Mon­day that a 24-year-old woman who was arrest­ed on Sat­ur­day in the north­east­ern sub­urbs of the cap­i­tal is being held on charges of mur­der and rape of a minor, tor­ture, bar­bar­ic acts and con­ceal­ment of a body.

A 43-year-old man has also been detained for help­ing to hide the girl’s body, accord­ing to a state­ment from the pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor’s office. The oth­er four were acquitted.

Jus­tice Min­is­ter Eric Dupond-Moret­ti told the Nation­al Assem­bly on Tues­day that the detained woman had been ordered to leave France on August 22. The sus­pect is unknown to police, but she says she is a vic­tim of vio­lence herself.

Far-right politi­cians have since blamed the cen­trist gov­ern­ment of French Pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron, blam­ing its immi­gra­tion poli­cies for the girl’s death.

“The sus­pects of this bar­bar­ic act should not have been in France. Marine Le Pen, who ran for pres­i­dent for the third time this year and was unsuc­cess­ful, said on Mon­day: ‘What are they wait­ing for? To stop unruly ille­gal immi­gra­tion once and for all,” he tweeted.

French Prime Min­is­ter Elis­a­beth Born told par­lia­ment on the same day that Le Pen should “show decen­cy and respect for the pain of her family”.

Far-right leader Eric Zem­mour, who rose to promi­nence in this year’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and sparked con­tro­ver­sy before his chal­lenge waned, called the death “Fran­co­side,” the selec­tive killing of the French, in a tweet on Monday.