It is not a common occurrence either here or elsewhere for the Minister of Justice to publicly apologize for the failure of his country’s justice system to protect the life of an eleven-year-old girl. And yet this admission was made, on June 5, on the main news bulletin of the TF1 channel, by the French Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, noting that “there have been serious omissions in the follow-up of the complaints” that had been submitted against the main suspect, for the murder of Liana, an 11-year-old schoolgirl, who was found dead on June 4, in Gers, southwestern France.
On the occasion of the case, the political pressure on the French government of the centrist Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecorny, is intensifying. Yesterday, in the French Senate, a hearing was held for the Ministers of the Interior and Justice, Laurent Nunies and Gérald Darmanet, respectively.
Major Political Issue – Macron Intervention
Amid polarization characterizing the election campaign in France ahead of the April 2027 presidential election, the “Liana case” has become a major political issue. At the beginning, the French government was particularly careful in its handling, but after the angry reactions of public opinion and the opposition, French President Emmanuel Macron also intervened in the case, who spoke of “a malfunction of Justice in this absolute tragedy”. He pointed out that there are “systemic” and “individual responsibilities” that need to be clarified and said he does not accept arguments about a lack of resources or budget as an excuse.
Prime Minister Lecorny, from Macron’s party, which leads a minority government, concluded that there were “aggravating factors in the process, at all levels” and that the French state should review its procedures and warning systems. His government is seeking to show that it shares the emotion and widespread sadness caused by the girl’s murder, but also that it will impose sanctions on those who could have acted sooner to prevent the tragedy.
Proposal to reform the child protection system
In view of the developments, the French Center-Left calls for a comprehensive reform of the child protection system, within the framework of an “integrated law” (loi intégrale). For this reason, he requests that a proposal for a law submitted in December, by seven deputies, be examined urgently. “This law offers a comprehensive answer, as it covers many areas and overturns, for example, the way judicial institutions work, proposing the creation of specialized courts,” said Céline Thiebault-Martinez, a Socialist MP.
The French government, however, rejects, for now, this possibility. Prime Minister Lecorny has convened the relevant ministers and wants to incorporate in another bill, in July, certain measures, such as the tightening of penalties for acts of violence, the modification of the statute of limitations, the informing of victims at all stages of the judicial process, and the obligation to justify the decisions to archive cases of sexual crimes without criminal prosecution.
The proposal of the French Right
As Bruno Retagio, president of the right-wing party Les Républicains, and former Minister of the Interior (ministry also responsible for Public Order, in France) recalled, the Minister of Justice, Darmanen, had issued a circular in January giving priority to complaints about child victims, but “apparently the minister was not listened to”. “There is no point in multiplying the circulars if we do not methodically check their application. This tragedy exposes French bureaucracy. The state has turned into a completely dysfunctional machine,” he argued.
Retagio proposes to create a Disciplinary Court of Justice, which will impose possible sanctions in place of the current Supreme Council of Justice. This court should include “a body of citizens, chosen by lot,” which would sit “together with judicial officers and persons of learned authority.”
The far-left Insubordinate France
The head of the parliamentary group of the far-left France Insubordinate party, Mathilde Panot, called for the resignation of the justice minister, pointing to his “political responsibility” for Liana’s death, and accusing him of leading the judiciary to a state of “degradation and impoverishment”, reducing its resources “year by year”.
The timeline of the case
On May 29, in Fleurance, a town of 6,200 in Gers in southwestern France, Liana, an 11-year-old student, disappeared after leaving her school. The authorities started looking for her.
According to the prosecutor’s office of the city of Us, – the administrative center of the region -, a witness testified that he saw the girl after leaving school, in the vehicle of a man, aged 41, who was quickly identified, thanks to the analysis of the material from the city’s surveillance cameras.
On June 1, the suspect, named Jerome Barela, was arraigned on charges of kidnapping and illegal detention of a minor under the age of 15 and was remanded in custody. Barela was registered in the electronic file of the police, already before the case of Liana. A total of nine judicial or police proceedings had been initiated against him. In 2021, he lost his job at the high school in the town of Lektour – also in the Xers area – due to “inappropriate behavior towards a high school student”.
In 2022, a lawsuit was filed against him for raping a seven-year-old girl. The case was dismissed in May 2024 as it was deemed that there was insufficient evidence to establish the offence. In August 2025, he faced a new complaint, for rapes he allegedly committed in 2024 and 2025, on a ten-year-old girl named Rosa. The alleged acts were supported by medical examinations of the child, which “confirmed the existence of traumatic injuries”.
This year, on February 14, during a phone call with police officers, the Ush prosecutor’s office requested that the suspect be placed in police custody for questioning. However, prior to Liana’s disappearance, the suspect had never been questioned or given a formal statement to the authorities.
