The body of Lyhanna, 11, was found in a ditch outside a housing estate in the Paris suburb of Saint-Ouen. The child had been missing for three days. Her throat had been cut.
Sources close to the investigation confirm that a suspect, a 27-year-old man with a history of sexual offences, has been taken into custody. For the second time in less than a week, France is convulsed by the murder of a child. Last Wednesday, 12-year-old Lola was found dead in a plastic box in the 19th arrondissement.
The suspect in that case, a 24-year-old Algerian woman, remains in psychiatric care. The toll now stands at two children dead, two suspects held. For the parents of France, it is unbearable.
The government has been caught off guard. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has promised a 'security crackdown' in the estates where the murders occurred. But for the crowds gathering outside the municipal buildings of Saint-Ouen, it is too little, too late.
The National Rally of Marine Le Pen has seized on the outrage. 'This is what happens when you open the borders,' a party spokesperson told me. 'The government has failed its children.
' President Macron has not commented. Aides say he is following the case. But the street is calling for his head.
In the estate where Lyhanna lived, a woman told me, 'They send the police to stop us from protesting, but they don't send them to protect our children.' The pressure is building. Macron is in a tight spot.
He campaigned on law and order. Now his government is looking at a scandal that cuts deeper than any budget deficit. The numbers don't lie.
Violent crime among minors has risen 25% since 2017. Over 1,000 children were victims of homicide in the last decade. This is not a blip.
It is a pattern. And the president is running out of time. The wait for justice is over.
The wait for answers is about to begin.
