France's justice minister backs surveillance files for pedocriminals after Lyhanna killing

The proposal

Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin declared himself "very favourable" to a proposal from MP Antoine Vermorel-Marques (Les Républicains) to create a "risk pre-detection file for sexual offences against minors". The file would aggregate data from existing judicial databases through interconnections. Darmanin said the principle and provisions would be adopted in the government's child protection bill, which begins its examination in the National Assembly in July.

I am personally very favourable to the proposal you are making.

The Lyhanna case

The proposal comes weeks after the death of Lyhanna, an 11-year-old schoolgirl killed in the Gers department at the end of May. The main suspect, Jérôme Barella, had been the subject of several complaints and reports for rape before the killing, but no action was taken by the justice system or gendarmerie. The case has triggered intense scrutiny of how France handles prior warnings about child sex offenders.

The CNIL obstacle

Darmanin acknowledged that creating such administrative files would require the approval of the CNIL, France's data protection authority. He noted that the CNIL has refused to authorise this type of file for intelligence, police, gendarmerie and justice services "since the 2000s and 2010s". The minister proposed to the president of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, that they jointly ask the CNIL to "unblock very quickly these file interconnections which, indeed, we lack, and which are authorised in other European countries".

For this, the Interior Ministry would need to create an administrative file, even if it is fed by intelligence measures, including judicial ones.

Next steps

The child protection bill is scheduled for parliamentary debate starting in July. Darmanin's endorsement signals that the government intends to incorporate the surveillance mechanism into that legislation, though the CNIL's stance remains a significant hurdle.