France faces crisis over child protection after Lyhanna killing

France’s judicial system is under intense scrutiny after Lyhanna, an 11-year-old girl, was found dead and investigators said a suspect with earlier allegations against him was not questioned until his arrest over her disappearance. The case has become a test of whether prosecutors, magistrates and ministers can explain why warnings did not produce faster action.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu summoned ministers on June 9 for a crisis meeting and pushed for stronger child-protection legislation, tougher penalties for serial rapists, better information for victims and stricter rules for dropping cases. The government has also ordered an investigation into how Lyhanna’s case was handled, with findings expected by mid-June, as pressure mounts on Emmanuel Macron’s minority government and Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin.

Lyhanna was reported missing in Fleurance on May 29. Her body was found in southwest France and identified on June 5, the same day the main suspect was placed under formal investigation on kidnapping and murder charges. Reuters reported that the suspect had previously been accused of raping a minor in a case opened after a complaint filed in August 2025, but he was not questioned until after Lyhanna vanished. Reporting also says earlier allegations in 2017 and a separate 2022 rape accusation involving a child under 15 were dismissed later, deepening anger over how the system handled repeated warning signs.

The crisis has also turned attention to the Auch prosecutor’s office and the Tribunal judiciaire d'Auch, which lawmaker David Taupiac had already flagged as overstretched. In a written question to the Justice Ministry in April 2025, Taupiac warned of a shortage of magistrates and clerks and repeated IT failures, saying the problems were making people feel abandoned by a justice system that could not do its job. That warning now reads like an indictment of how thinly stretched courts in Gers had become before the Lyhanna case exploded into a national scandal.

Public anger spilled onto the streets on June 8, when tens of thousands of people protested across France. Demonstrators carried signs reading “Broken childhood, justice denied” and chanted “protect our children,” while women’s rights activists accused the government and president of failing to act. In Paris, Anne-Cecile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes said, “We are angry.”

For Macron and Lecornu, the political stakes go beyond one case. The killing has exposed a broader failure in child protection, prosecutorial follow-through and court capacity, and it has forced France to confront whether its justice system can still keep children safe before the next warning is missed.