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00:00France's conservative interior minister is promising tougher rules to, in his words,
00:04protect the French after a Moroccan man suspected of raping and murdering a 19-year-old woman,
00:09then dumping her body in a Paris park, was tracked down and arrested in Switzerland.
00:14Prosecutors say the suspect has previous convictions for
00:17a rape and also an expulsion order. Here at France 24, Emmald Maxwell with this.
00:23On top of the sadness at Paris Dauphine University, there's anger.
00:33We have a justice system that doesn't work. The suspect had an expulsion order,
00:37he was supposed to leave France, but instead he was casually wandering around Paris.
00:42It's not normal that a man who should have been under house arrest was allowed out.
00:47The law wasn't respected.
00:49The rape and killing of 19-year-old student Philippine,
00:52and the fact that the suspect, Taha O, was supposed to be deported and wasn't,
00:57has inflamed political tensions in France, where the new right-wing government plans to crack down
01:02on immigration. France's new interior minister, who has vowed to boost law and order,
01:08said the country's legal arsenal needed to develop to protect the French.
01:13So what went wrong in this case? Convicted for a rape committed in 2019 when he was a minor,
01:19Taha O was sentenced to seven years in prison and expulsion at the end of it.
01:24But he was released in June, then placed in administrative detention,
01:28while the French authorities issued a request for a consular pass to Morocco.
01:33It finally came through in early September, by which time a judge had freed Taha O,
01:38on condition he reported regularly to the authorities.
01:43It's quite surprising, because he hadn't been in the detention centre for the maximum of 90 days
01:48yet. So we should really ask what reason the judge gave in order to release him.
01:54Just before the student's murder, the suspect had been placed on a wanted list
01:58because he'd flouted the conditions of his release.
02:01France routinely issues deportation orders, but only around 7% of them are enforced,
02:07compared to 30% across the European Union.
02:10Tragic case, Admiral Maxwell there. Andrew Hillier joins us for more on the situation.
02:16What's the latest, Andrew?
02:17Yeah, Mark, this is a case that has sent huge shockwaves throughout France,
02:21comes at a crucial time, just after the formation of that new government.
02:24Even earlier today, we heard from a French magistrate's union,
02:29issuing, publishing an open letter in which they deplored the fact that this debate had taken such
02:33a, they said, xenophobic turn. They singled out Bruno Retailleur, France's new conservative
02:39interior minister, for the way he criticised the French justice system.
02:45And the other thing this case has done, Mark, is really kind of put the spotlight on the
02:49ongoing tug of war we've seen this week between, on the one hand,
02:52Retailleur in the interior ministry from the right, and Didier Migaud, who's the new justice
02:58minister, the only figure in Michel Barnier's cabinet who is from the left.
03:03So Didier Migaud, earlier this week, defending the judiciary,
03:09responding to Retailleur saying that the French judiciary is independent.
03:15Then Retailleur hit back at Didier Migaud. He said that, okay, the French judiciary is
03:21independent, but French parliament, which embodies the will of the French people, is sovereign.
03:25So we've seen this, you know, this back and forth between the two men.
03:28It all kind of came to a head today when both men were received by Michel Barnier at Matignon,
03:34that's the French prime minister's official residence.
03:36Matignon insists that neither of the ministers was reprimanded.
03:42However, it's not a good look for Michel Barnier in this first week of his new government.
03:46Indeed, one can't begin to imagine what the family of the victim are feeling with all this
03:52swirling round. Break down for us, Andrew, the figures on expulsion orders.
03:58Okay, Mark. So this expulsion order, it's known by its French acronym as an OQTF.
04:04Now in English, that's the Obligation to Leave French Territory.
04:07So I'm going to break down the figures for you.
04:08Now, the suspect was subject to one of these orders.
04:10And in the first three months of this year, France ordered the expulsion of more than
04:1534,000 non-EU nationals.
04:18That's nearly a third of the total across the entire EU.
04:21Compare that to the next two countries on the list, Germany and Belgium.
04:24So a huge figure there.
04:26And the reason I'm showing you these figures, Mark, is that France has come under criticism
04:30for following through with less than 10% of these orders.
04:36But let me show you the next set of figures.
04:37Because if you actually put those figures into context, you can see that even though
04:41France carries out a small proportion of actual expulsion orders, it still carries out more
04:47expulsions than any other EU state, more than Germany, more than Sweden.
04:52So, you know, the next question you may ask, Mark, is why is it so hard for France to carry
04:56out these deportations?
04:58Well, there are many reasons.
05:00Sometimes it's down to bureaucracy.
05:01Other times it's often down to diplomatic rouse.
05:04Sometimes there's a reluctance from some countries to accept the return of people who have criminal
05:11convictions.
05:12In this particular case, it appears that French authorities contacted their Moroccan counterparts.
05:16They didn't get a response.
05:18So it would appear that French authorities never received a consular pass from Morocco,
05:24which is what is needed for the removal of a person without a passport.
05:28Now, you hinted at the political action a little earlier.
05:30The far right in France, one might imagine, making a political headway out of this one.
05:36Yeah, I mean, as you may expect, indeed, the far right has jumped on this case.
05:41The leader of the National Rally, Jordan Bardella, saying Tuesday that the government was far
05:46too lax.
05:47The big issue here is that the National Rally has a lot of leverage over the government,
05:52because if there were to be a no-confidence vote tabled by the left, for example, the
05:56National Rally could have the votes to bring down the government.
06:00So, you know, the far right has already alluded to another case, a case that happened two
06:05years ago, the killing of 12-year-old Lola here in Paris.
06:10The suspected killer in that case was an Algerian national who had stayed in France on an
06:17expired student visa.
06:19Now, back then, the far right organised protests and tried to conflate the issue, making it
06:25about illegal immigration in general.
06:28So the concern this time round is that, you know, the far right may weaponise this case
06:34to push an anti-migrant agenda, capitalising on the leverage that it has over the French
06:39government.
06:41Thank you very much indeed for giving us some more of the context of this case, which is
06:45horrific, just on the basic facts of what has happened.
06:48Our hearts go out to the family of the victim, but it's causing great political upheaval
06:54here in France as well.
06:55We'll continue to follow.