France re-examines 69,626 child abuse case files, finds 15,000 unknown complaints after Lyhanna murder outcry

The audit's origins

The nationwide review was ordered on 8 June after the murder of Lyhanna, an 11-year-old girl found dead in the Gers region. The primary suspect in her killing, Jérôme Barella, had previously been the subject of several complaints for sexual assault on minors but had never been summoned by investigators or brought before a court. Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin confronted the 36 public prosecutors general, stating the system had not lacked resources or laws but had failed to prioritise child rape cases.

There had been neither a lack of means nor of laws, but a lack of prioritising child rapes.

Prosecutors were instructed to re-examine every complaint involving minors by 14 July. The effort mobilised magistrates across France for six weeks and produced a body of data Darmanin presented to the Assemblée Nationale on 15 July 2026.

What the audit uncovered

Prosecutors re-examined 69,626 known case files nationwide. In the process, investigators discovered an additional 15,000 complaints in police services that had never been forwarded to prosecutors' offices. The combined total now registered stands at 85,047 complaints. Of the reviewed cases, 61.5% involve offences (délits) and 38.5% involve crimes. Suspects have been identified in 83.5% of cases; the remaining 16.5% involve unidentified perpetrators. Strikingly, 91.4% of the individuals implicated have no prior criminal record, according to the Ministry of Justice.

The file had been sitting with the investigation services and had not received particular attention, because investigation services are overwhelmed and because sometimes they did not perhaps measure the seriousness of certain cases.

Abdelkrim Grini, the public prosecutor of Alès, described handling 200 files during the audit, some dating back to 2023 and 2024. Among them was an uncle suspected of raping two nephews aged 5 and 7 at the time of the events, a case that had seen no progress for three years after the initial complaint.

Classification and the priority system

The audit identified 970 case files as priority cases, representing 1.14% of the total reviewed. A file was classified as priority under three criteria: the perpetrator is identified, has a judicial record, and the victim is still a minor. The Minister noted that 36% of victims remain minors, while the remainder had reached adulthood before filing their complaint, in many cases decades after the events occurred. Darmanin reiterated his intention to push for the imprescriptibility of sexual crimes committed against minors. The average age of pending procedures with prosecutors is 14.2 months, a timeframe the Ministry wants to reduce.

Immediate judicial impact

Since 8 June, 1,350 judicial investigations led by examining magistrates have been opened for sexual crimes and offences against minors. This represents a 309% increase compared to the same period last year, or roughly four times the normal rate. A total of 675 individuals have been incarcerated since 8 June for crimes and offences of a sexual nature against minors, a rise of 173% compared to the equivalent period in the previous year. The Ministry of Justice has not specified the proportion of pre-trial detention following indictment versus incarceration after conviction at trial.

What comes next

The Minister of Justice said he will hold one-on-one meetings with all 36 public prosecutors general by the end of July to review local case stocks, identify difficulties, and set new priorities for accelerating judicial processing. In a post on social media, Darmanin described the audit as a considerable body of work accomplished and signalled that the prioritisation effort will continue.