Uproar in France as it emerges suspect in case of missing girl had rape allegations dismissed

Outrage has erupted in France after it emerged the main suspect in the case of an 11-year-old girl missing since last week had been repeatedly accused of sexually abusing children with no action taken. A body was discovered on Thursday and formal identification was under way, an informed source said. Dozens of police and volunteers have for days been combing countryside in south-western France to find the girl, who has been identified only by her first name, Lyhanna. She went missing on Friday near the village of Fleurance, and was last seen getting into a man’s car. A 41-year-old father of two has been detained as the key suspect. A prosecutor has said that previous legal complaints existed against the suspect accusing him of raping a minor, leading to a national uproar about alleged judicial failings. “What we’re discovering day after day is absolutely unbearable,” the government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said. “It raises a profound question: what importance do we give to victims’ testimonies? How are investigations conducted?” Bregeon told the Europe 1 and CNews broadcasters. Volunteers on horseback helped about 170 police search for the child on Thursday. View image in fullscreen Professional divers assisting the police with an underwater search near Urdens in the area surrounding Fleurance on Thursday. Photograph: I Bazin/ABACA/Shutterstock After being shown security camera footage, the suspect admitted giving her a lift but insisted he had dropped her off at a swimming pool. The prosecutor, Clemence Meyer, said there had been previous complaints against him. In December 2017, a mother reported that her 17-year-old daughter had been in a relationship with the man. The case was dropped in 2018 after the girl said she had consented. In January 2022, a complaint accused him of raping a child younger than 15 in 2020 at his home in south-western France. The case was transferred to the local prosecutor but dismissed in 2024 owing to lack of evidence. In a third case, on 22 August, 2025, the mother of a girl born in 2014 accused him of raping her child between September 2024 and May 2025 at his home, the prosecutor said. The complaint was first examined in the nearby city of Toulouse, then transferred to the local prosecutor’s office, who in January demanded police investigate. But they had still not questioned him when the 11-year-old disappeared. “The investigation was still under way when Lyhanna went missing,” Meyer said. She added that a new complaint for the alleged rape of a minor had been filed on Wednesday, but provided no further details. The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, told parliament on Wednesday that he had demanded the justice ministry carry out an inquiry into the handling of the cases. Anne-Cécile Mailfert, of the Women’s Foundation activist group, said better laws were needed to prevent sexual violence. “I am stunned and I am angry,” she said on the group’s Instagram page, after discovering the suspect had already been accused of rape last year. “Another 10-year-old girl found the immense courage to tell her parents. They supported her, they believed her, she went to the police, they filed a complaint, and then nothing happened,” Mailfert said. “We’re calling for a comprehensive law against sexual violence, because the system doesn’t work.”