Horror in France for the murder of 12-year-old Lola

• Frank Renout

  correspondent France

In France, developments surrounding the mysterious murder of a 12-year-old girl followed with horror and curiosity. She disappeared on Friday afternoon after returning home from school. That same night she was found dead in a plastic trunk.

Two suspects were arrested. The prime suspect is a 24-year-old woman. She is accused of child murder, rape and torture.

Lola, 12, walked to her home in northeast Paris on Friday. “Video footage of her shows her entering the apartment complex at around 3:15 pm, along with a woman she did not know,” the French prosecutor said. “Around 5 pm the woman went out again, carrying heavy suitcases.”

Those suitcases were discovered later that evening near the building by a homeless man, who alerted the police. He found Lola’s lifeless, folded body in one of the suitcases. She had neck injuries, among other things.

The girl would have died of suffocation. “There are also wounds on the face and back,” says the OM.

But there’s more, the autopsy revealed. Lola’s feet are marked in red with the numbers 0 and 1. One reason for this is unknown.

According to the OM, the suspect’s statements show that he took the girl to her sister’s apartment in the same building and forced her to take a shower there. “After that, there was sexual violence and other violence that led to Lola’s death.”

During the interrogation, the suspect first admitted to the murder and then backed off. “He doesn’t make me cold or hot,” he said, according to the AFP news agency after she was shown photos of the remains. “I myself was raped and my parents died before my eyes.”

The atrocity sparked outrage in France. Education Minister Pap Ndiaye visited the girl’s school and media speculations about a possible reason.

The suspect’s attorney asked the press not to spread rumors. According to him, the case is not about organ trafficking, nor about “infantile rites”, as reported by some media.

The main suspect is an Algerian without valid residence documents. Which has now turned into a political struggle. According to the radical right-wing politician Alessio Jolly it is the murder of a “French, white, Christian girl”.

Former presidential candidate Éric Zemmour spoke of Lola’s murder as an example from ‘francocidio’: a word used to say that the French are killed because they are French.

According to police sources, cited in the press, there are still no indications that the origin of the suspect has anything to do with the murder.