The murder of Lyhanna Rameau, the 11-year-old girl who disappeared a week ago in the south of France and whose body was found this Thursday, has become a state affair, revealing the chronic problems of the judicial system that victim and child protection associations have been denouncing for years. Jérôme Barella, her alleged kidnapper and main suspect in her death, had been reported several times for rape. The tragedy has brought together the entire political class, including the Government, which admits “an immense failure” of the institutions.
“The judicial institution has failed to protect the girl (…) We have failed in following up on the complaints. In the name of Justice, as minister, I offer my apologies to the family and to the French people, who are legitimately shocked and terrified to see these failures,” admitted the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, in an interview on the TF1 channel shortly after it was confirmed that the body found the day before on a farm was that of the minor. The autopsy has not yet been able to reveal the causes of death.
The Government apologizes, but delegates much of the responsibility to judges and prosecutors, who in turn denounce the lack of resources to deal with the avalanche of cases. Between 2016 and 2024, reports of assault or rape offenses have increased by more than 200%.
On Friday, the Ministry of Justice sent the press several internal circulars sent in recent months to the country’s public prosecutor’s offices, in which Darmanin ordered that complaints of sexual violence against minors and women be treated as a priority. “Obviously, they have been overlooked,” he denounced. French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that “the lack of resources is not an excuse,” as the Justice budget increased from 8.1 billion in 2017, when his first term began, to almost 13 billion in 2026.
Lyhanna’s death has caused immense shock in the country because it could have been avoided. The detainee, 41 years old and father of two children who attend the same school as the victim, had been reported up to five times. The first time, in 2017, he was even expelled from a high school where he worked after a student reported sexual harassment. However, the complaints were dismissed. As for the last one, filed last August for alleged rape of an 11-year-old minor, the person involved was not even questioned.
The negligence in Jérôme Barella’s case is not an isolated incident, but the tip of an iceberg that feminist and child protection associations have been trying to make visible for years: victims are not heard, complaints fall on deaf ears or are dismissed. According to data from the Ministry of Justice itself, there are three million complaints in police stations awaiting examination, of which 70,000 are for rape or sexual assault.
In the case of minors, the figures speak for themselves about the problem. A child is a victim of sexual assault, rape, or incest every three minutes, according to Ciivise, the association against incest, which cites official data. This is equivalent to three children from each school class. Only one in three receives protection.
Lyhanna’s murder is the last straw, although judicial negligence has been evident on other occasions. The most recent and high-profile case is that of surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec, sentenced to 20 years in prison for having abused or raped more than 300 people, most of them minors, over three decades in the exercise of his profession. He was arrested in 2017, despite having already been convicted in 2005 for possession of pedophilic images. He was not prohibited from practicing and continued to treat children and adolescents.
Another blatant case is that of the so-called “Sambre rapist,” Dino Scala, one of France’s most prolific serial sexual criminals. He was convicted in 2022 for having assaulted and/or raped more than fifty victims, most of them minors, between 1988 and 2018 in Pas de Calais, on the border with Belgium, which shares this river with France. Complaints accumulated in police stations, were dismissed due to lack of evidence, or ended up in a drawer. Scala raped with impunity for almost three decades until he was finally arrested in 2018.
One doesn’t even have to go back very far, as Lyhanna’s death comes amidst a scandal following the recent wave of sexual abuse complaints in a hundred Parisian schools by school monitors. 78 animators are being investigated, although families criticize that they have been reporting for years.
This Sunday, there will be a silent march in tribute to Lyhanna, which the girl’s parents will attend. It will be in Fleurance, the town where she lived, about 60 kilometers from Toulouse. On Monday afternoon, demonstrations are called in front of courts across France in tribute to the little girl, but above all in protest against the judicial treatment given to this case and many others.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has summoned the Ministers of Interior and Justice on Monday to review the situation and propose measures and possible sanctions. The Minister of Justice has called French prosecutors for consultations on the same day to evaluate the failures.
Currently, there is a waiting period of more than 10 months until a rape complaint begins to be investigated, according to the Women’s Foundation. 94% are dismissed, and this is something already denounced by the European Court of Human Rights, which in April 2025 condemned France for failing to protect three women who reported rapes when they were 13, 14, and 15 years old, and alleged that French authorities had not protected them. The court ruled in their favor.
Aware that justice needs reform concerning these crimes, last April Darmanin traveled to Spain with a delegation of high-ranking magistrates and the prosecutor of the French Supreme Court to draw inspiration from Spain’s 2004 comprehensive law against gender violence, a pioneer in Europe and a model for France.
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