French minister vows to change immigration rules after student’s murder | France

France’s new rightwing interior minister has said there will be consequences after a Moroccan man suspected of murdering a 19-year-old university student and leaving her body in a forest was arrested in Switzerland.

A source close to the case said the alleged attacker was a 22-year-old man of Moroccan nationality. Prosecutors have said the suspect had been previously convicted of rape and had been the subject of an order to leave France.

The killing of the student, named only by the authorities as Philippine, is expected to further inflame political tensions in France where the new rightwing government plans to crack down on immigration.

“This is an abominable crime,” said Bruno Retailleau, the interior minister, who has promised to boost law and order, tighten immigration legislation and make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

“It is up to us, as public leaders, to refuse to accept the inevitable and to develop our legal arsenal, to protect the French,” he added. “If we have to change the rules, let’s change them.”

On Saturday, the body of a student was discovered in the Bois de Boulogne park in western Paris, not far from the Université Paris-Dauphine, which Philippine attended.

A Moroccan national was arrested on Tuesday in the Swiss canton of Geneva and was identified as a suspect in a murder committed in Paris, a spokesperson for the Swiss justice ministry told AFP.

“The Federal Office of Justice then ordered detention for extradition purposes on the basis of an arrest request from France,” she added.

The student had last been seen at the university on Friday. Witnesses reported seeing a man with a pickaxe, said one police source.

According to the prosecutors, the man was convicted in 2021 of a rape committed in 2019, when he was a minor. He was released in June having serving his sentence, then placed in an administrative detention centre, according to the source. In early September, a judge freed him on condition he reported regularly to the authorities. But just before the murder of the student, the suspect had been placed on a wanted list because he had flouted the conditions of his release.

The killing of the student has sparked outrage in the country, with both far right and leftwing politicians urging tough measures.

“Philippine’s life was stolen from her by a Moroccan migrant who was under a removal order,” Jordan Bardella, the leader of the far right National Rally (RN), the largest single party in parliament, said on X on Tuesday. “Our justice system is lax, our state is dysfunctional and our leaders are letting the French live alongside human bombs,” he added.

“It’s time for this government to act: our compatriots are angry and will not mince words.”

The former socialist president François Hollande also chimed in, saying deportation orders had to be enforced “quickly”.