French pay tribute to murdered student

Nearly 3,000 people on Friday attended the funeral of a Paris student who was raped and murdered in a case that has inflamed a French debate on immigration after a Moroccan was named as the suspected attacker.

The body of the 19-year-old, named only as Philippine, was found half-buried in a park in western Paris last weekend. The 22-year-old Moroccan suspect was arrested in Geneva.

Following a June-July election in which the far right performed strongly, politicians seized on the killing, demanding a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Rights groups and left-wingers said the focus should not be on immigration but rather on femicide.

Some 2,800 people attended the funeral inside and outside the Saint-Louis Cathedral in Versailles on the outskirts of Paris, according to a police source.

"We are here to weep, to pray," said Pierre-Herve Grosjean, the priest presiding over the ceremony.

"Justice will do its job, this is really necessary but it is not enough," he said according to a statement released to the media. He called on the mourners to "come out of this funeral a little better."

Philippine was to be buried in a private ceremony in the neighboring Paris suburb of Montigny-le-Bretonneux.

"I thought it was important to come here to reflect and pay my respects," one 15-year-old girl said at the funeral ceremony, clutching a bouquet of white and purple flowers.

Her mother, Anouck B., said many people were affected by the tragedy. "It was important to come and support the whole family," she said.

The Moroccan suspect is expected to be extradited to France. French authorities say he had been previously convicted of rape and been the subject of an expulsion order.

On Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron, speaking on a visit to Montreal, called Philippine murder "a heinous and atrocious crime" and added that "we need to protect the public better".

The conservative interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, has vowed to change immigration rules after the murder.

The student's body was found last Saturday in the Bois de Boulogne Park not far from Paris-Dauphine University in the city's affluent 16th district.

  Weekend rallies  

According to prosecutors, the suspect was convicted in 2021 of a rape committed in 2019, when he was a minor.

He was released in June, having served his sentence, and then placed in an administrative detention center.

In early September, a judge freed him on condition he report regularly to the authorities.

Since the murder, politicians across the political spectrum have urged tough measures, saying deportation orders are not enforced properly.

"How many tragedies will France have to endure before our leaders react?" Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally, said on the X social media platform.

A far-right group said it would stage a protest in Paris on Sunday.

Weekend rallies were also set to take place in other cities including Lyon in the east and Nice in the south.

But some said the country should focus not on immigration but on protecting women from violent men in general.

"Misogyny kills. Let's not have the wrong debate", said the women's rights group CIDFF.

In another case that has shocked France, a 71-year-old Frenchman is on trial for drugging and raping his wife for years along with dozens of other local suspects.