France: Funeral for murdered girl amid anger over suspect's freedom

An 11-year-old girl called Lyhanna, murdered two weeks ago in south-western France, has been buried amid persistent public anger at failings that left her suspected killer at large.

Fellow residents joined the girl's family for a funeral ceremony before she was interred in the cemetery of the small town of Fleurance, 50km (30 miles) west of Toulouse.

Mayors across the broader Gers region called on people to gather in support of the family outside town halls, where flags were flown at half-mast.

Lyhanna's murder provoked a wave of revulsion across France after it emerged prime suspect Jérôme Barella, 41, was denounced nine months ago to police for alleged repeated sexual abuse of a 10-year-old.

And, according to newspaper Le Monde, US authorities had alerted French police after Barella's online activity suggested he could be accessing images that showed child sex abuse.

French police only discovered this after conducting a trawl for Barella's name following his arrest last week. The French National Office for Minors (OFMIN) said the signal came in 2023 and was judged to be "weak". The office said it received around 300,000 signals every year.

New sexual allegations have also emerged, regarding not just Barella, but his father and brother, too.

On Wednesday, Barella's brother Yannick was placed under investigation for rape following complaints by two women, one of whom was a minor at the time of the alleged crime. The other woman is his former partner.

Yannick was taken into custody this week when he went to police to complain of defamation. He denies the allegations against him.

The Barellas' father Joël, 71, is also under investigation after state prosecutors in Béziers this week re-opened a 2019 case in which he is alleged to have sexually abused his partner's granddaughter.

A second granddaughter has also made allegations of abuse in French media. He has always denied the allegations.

Jérôme Barella's daughter was a friend of Lyhanna, who was seen in his car on the Friday of her disappearance after being let out of school. He was arrested three days later and her body found on a nearby farm eight days ago.

A horrific crime turned into a national scandal as France realised the scale of official blunders that had left Barella at liberty.

He had already been identified in three separate sex abuse cases when he was denounced in August last year for the alleged rape of a 10-year-old girl called Rosa.

Medical examination showed the girl's claims to be true. But justice officials and gendarmes acted so slowly that over the next nine months Barella was not even contacted.

The case has emerged at a time of growing public anxiety about how the French justice system treats sex crimes against women and minors.

Paris city hall has had to fend off charges of negligence after several school assistants were charged with sexual abuse - while this week, one of the country's best-known singers, Patrick Bruel, was placed under investigation for rape and sexual assault, which he denies.

Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin has resisted calls for his resignation, and an opinion poll Friday showed that two-thirds of those asked thought he should stay in his job.

He said that blunders in the run-up to Lyhanna's murder were not the result of a lack of resources or manpower in the justice system – as some have been arguing – but of a failure to give proper priority to what was obviously a serious case.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has vowed to toughen the legal arsenal by lengthening jail sentences for child-rapists and setting a time limit for investigations into claims of sex abuse of minors.

But campaigning groups say they want a new overarching law covering sexual violence against women and children, as well as a new budget line of €2.7bn (£2.3bn; $3.1bn) to implement it. They have promised to stage protests outside courts around the country every Monday.