French women are afraid. But the country’s politicians don’t seem to care

In a country that has become accustomed to atrocities in the last decade, the brutal murder of a 19-year-old student has outraged France. The body of the young woman, named only as Philippine, was discovered last Saturday in the Bois de Boulogne, a famous park in the west of Paris. She had gone missing on Friday afternoon, shortly after eating lunch in her university canteen.

On Tuesday evening, the authorities in Geneva, acting on information provided by French police, arrested a man as he arrived on a train from Annecy. The man in custody is a 22-year-old Moroccan who had entered France from Spain on June 13, 2019 on a tourist visa. He was 17 at the time so a child welfare authority took him under their wing. Three months later he raped a 23-year-old student.

In 2021, he was sentenced to seven years in prison but he was released into a retention centre in June this year and ordered to be deported to Morocco. The problem was he had no formal identification papers; France asked Morocco to send the relevant documentation so the deportation order could be processed. It was many weeks before Morocco responded. In the interim, a court had freed the man even though the judge acknowledged he presented a risk. He was ordered to report daily to the local gendarmerie. He didn’t. He made his way to Paris.

Philippine’s cruel misfortune was to cross paths with her killer in the Bois de Boulogne as she enjoyed the September sunshine last Friday.

My 19-year old daughter is a student in Paris. Her hall of residence is 700 metres from the Bois de Boulogne. She likes to stroll around the neighbourhood. All week my mind has been troubled by what might have been.

The right in France reacted to the news of the arrest with a mix of fury and disbelief. ‘Philippine’s life was stolen from her by a Moroccan migrant under an OQTF,’ posted Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, on social media. ‘This migrant therefore had no place on our soil, but he was able to reoffend with complete impunity. Our justice system is lax, our state is dysfunctional, our leaders let the French live with human bombs. It is time for this government to act.’

An OQTF is a deportation order (obligation de quitter le territoire français), which are issued to foreign nationals who are not wanted in France.

A Senate report in 2023 estimated that there are 700,000 people in France subject to deportation orders, the vast majority of whom are at liberty as there are only 1,800 places in retention centres.

In an interview in 2019, French president Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that only 12 per cent of these orders were being executed but he promised this would soon change. He mentioned the figure of 100 per cent. In fact, the execution rate has fallen to seven percent; the EU average is 30 per cent.

Justice is lax in France

In October 2022, a 12-year-old Parisian girl, Lola, was raped and murdered, allegedly by an Algerian woman who was subject to a deportation order. In April this year, Lola’s 49-year-old father suffered a fatal heart attack. The family’s lawyer attributed his death to the ‘hell’ he had endured since the murder of his daughter.

In the days after Lola’s death, Macron’s government spokesman, Olivier Veran, acknowledged that ‘we obviously need to do better’ in deporting unwanted foreign nationals. But they haven’t done better. Last year in Lille, a retired nurse was raped and murdered by an Ivorian in the country illegally. The victim’s sister-in-law declared that ‘the French people are in danger and the State is not doing its job’.

There was a similar sentiment from Claire, a Parisian who was raped last year in her home by a man who should have been deported. ‘Every week, we hear stories of women assaulted by people subject to OQTFs,’ said Claire. ‘I want to speak out to warn women that we are no longer safe in France, even in a neighbourhood we think is safe.’

Claire was vilified by some on the far-left and accused of racism.

Minutes after details were released about the man arrested in connection with Philippine’s death Sandrine Rousseau, a MP in the left-wing coalition, tweeted that ‘the far right will try to take advantage of this to spread its racist and xenophobic hatred’.

The anger of many millions in France, not just the ‘far-right’, is directed as much against the state as the perpetrators. They agree with Claire that women are no longer safe. A culture of denial runs parallel with institutional inefficiency, putting women in jeopardy.

On Wednesday morning, the Socialist MP Francois Hollande denied the charge of lax justice, insisting that ‘it is severe’. Hollande was the president of the Republic between 2012 and 2017, a period when the rot set in. His justice minister, Christiane Taubira, cancelled the construction of 24,000 additional prison places and then issued a circular to judges ordering them to issue lighter sentences so as not to overcrowd prisons.

The justice minister in Michel Barnier’s new government is Didier Migaud, another Socialist. On Tuesday morning, hours before news of the arrest in Geneva, he had scoffed at suggestions that soft sentencing was endangering its citizens. ‘I believe there’s no such thing as lax justice,’ he said. ‘We need to convince those who think there is.’

Justice is lax in France. Migaud needs to be convinced of it before another family suffers the agony that Philippine’s is experiencing.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/09/french-women-are-afraid-but-the-countrys-politicians-dont-seem-to-care/

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