PARIS (Reuters) – France’s far-right National Rally has seized on the arrest of a male Moroccan suspect in the murder of a 19-year-old female student in Paris to press the new government to be tougher on immigration and security.
Speaking just over 12 hours after National Rally (RN) leader Jordan Bardella pointed to public anger at the killing, new Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said the government was ready to change laws if needed.
After a July election in which President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist government suffered heavy losses, Marine Le Pen’s RN party signalled tacit support for a new coalition between centrists and conservatives, gaining kingmaker status.
The RN reserved the right to withdraw its backing for Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s cabinet if its concerns over immigration, security and other issues were not addressed, saying that the fate of the government was in its hands.
“It’s time for this government to act: our compatriots are angry and will not be content with just words,” Bardella said on Tuesday evening of the murder of 19-year-old Philippine, accusing the state of being too soft on security.
“Philippine’s life was stolen from her by a Moroccan migrant targeted by an OQTF (obligation to leave France),” he said on social media platform X.
Philippine’s body was found buried in a Paris park on Saturday, French media including Le Parisien reported.
The same media said the suspect, a 22-year-old Moroccan, was arrested in Switzerland on Tuesday evening. He had been due to be expelled from France after serving time in jail for rape, they said.
On Wednesday morning, Retailleau said: “If we need to change the rules, let’s change them.”
“Faced with such a tragedy, preceded by many others, we cannot just condemn it or be outraged,” Retailleau said in a statement. “It’s up to us, public officials, to … update our legislation, to protect the French.”
Retailleau, from the conservative Republicans party, had already signalled that France is likely to see much tougher immigration and security measures to reflect a broad rightward shift in society.
Greens lawmaker Sandrine Rousseau warned against the far right using the murder to “spread its racist hatred.”
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Ingrid Melander; additional reporting by Makini Brice, Editing by William Maclean)
