He Lyhanna’s case keeps in suspense France. The minor, 11 years old, disappeared on May 29 in the small town of Fleurance, in the southwest of the country. The last time she was seen was getting into the car of the father of one of the girl’s friends, currently accused of the disappearance.
After days of searching, the police found the body of a minor with clothes similar to those the girl was wearing the day she disappeared, in an abandoned agricultural exploitation area. However, the authorities have not yet confirmed that it is Lyhanna, as they are awaiting the autopsy of the body that is being carried out this Friday.
The main suspect, Jérôme Barella, had been arrested days before after several people pointed to him as the main author of the crime. He man, 41 years old, accumulated several complaints for pedophilia and had worked on the farm where the body was found, according to an agricultural official in the area.
Lyhanna’s death has sparked great outrage in the country, especially in the small town of Fleurance “where everyone knows everyone.” Prior to this case, the man had been subjected to at least five processes related to sexual violence against minors, two of them dismissed, as confirmed by the Auch prosecutor, Clémence Meyer. In addition, he was reported in 2025 by the mother of a 10-year-old girl whom he allegedly raped. Before the slowness of investigationthe victim’s mother constantly called the police station to insist on the case that seemed to be making no progress. To the point that the agents threatened to report her for harassment if the calls did not stop, as the mother herself acknowledged in a recent interview.
At the time of Lyhanna’s disappearance, Barella was already being investigated for this latest case, but since the complaint was filed, the man was never interrogated. Now, the town’s residents are asking for explanations as to why, despite the complaints, more forceful measures were not taken against the suspect.
Macron admits the failures of justice
“If justice had done its job better, perhaps this tragedy could have been avoided,” stressed Stéphane, a 65-year-old neighbor, who fears that the body discovered is that of Lyhanna.
Criticism has even reached the highest level of the State. own President, Emmanuel Macron, recognized this Thursday a failure in the French justice system: “It is clear that there has been a failure and that we cannot ignore that deficiencies have been revealed. Now we must clarify them,” urged the president.
In the face of increasing pressure, the Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, He met this Friday with the Ministers of Justice and the Interior to address possible judicial errors in this case, and requested that the conclusions of an open administrative investigation be presented to him “in 15 days”, according to his services.
Only 7% of complaints end in conviction
Lyhanna’s case is one more in the long list of pedophile crimes that could have been prevented. Recently, the complaint of parents for the rape of their son in a school in Paris uncovered a plot of sexual assaults in dozens of schools in the capital. In that scandal, there were also previous complaints about several monitors.
The case of the ex-surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec, convicted of raping more than 300 children for years despite having a history of pedophilia and being investigated by the FBI, he once again put on the table the problems of French justice in the face of these crimes that seem to be the great forgotten ones.
These are not isolated cases or specific errors. The independent Civiise commission estimates that Almost 160,000 minors are victims of sexual assault each year in France, the majority committed by people in their closest environment. Furthermore, only 7% of reports of sexual violence against children and 3% of reports of statutory rape end in a conviction.
“73% of complaints of sexual violence against minors are filed without further processing,” Denis Roth-Fichet, general secretary of Civiise, acknowledged for the AFP agency.
Subscribe to continue reading
