Teenager killed in upscale Paris neighborhood. Suspect was supposed to be deported but got out of jail and disappeared

The body of a 19-year-old Filipina woman was found Saturday in Paris, partially buried in the Bois de Boulogne, a vast park on the western edge of the French capital. She was last seen Friday at noon, a few hundred meters from the park, as she was leaving the campus of the University of Paris-Dauphine, where she was studying economics.

The man suspected of committing the crime was arrested Tuesday in Geneva, Switzerland. There he awaits deportation to France.

The BBC reported that he is 22-year-old Moroccan Taha O. An order to expel him from France was issued against him, but it was not carried out.

As Reuters wrote, the man was serving a prison sentence in France for raping a student in 2019. However, in June, a court decided to transfer him to an administrative detention center for illegal immigrants in the city of Metz, where he was to await deportation.

Then, on September 3, the court allowed the man to leave custody because the deportation process was delayed. The condition for this decision was that the 22-year-old regularly report to the police and live in a specific hotel, Reuters reports, citing French media. Three days later – on September 6 – the formalities related to his deportation were completed, but the man disappeared.

According to Eurostat, France deports more non-EU citizens than any other EU country, but issues so many such orders that the enforcement rate is still low. Fewer than 10 percent of French expulsion orders are currently enforced, according to government figures.

In the first quarter of 2024, France ordered the expulsion of 34,190 non-EU citizens. That’s almost a third of all expulsions ordered across the EU. In the same period, France expelled just 4,205 people (12 percent).

Why is it that far fewer expulsions than those ordered are actually carried out? As Reuters points out, some of the reasons include bureaucracy, diplomatic disputes and the reluctance of some countries to accept people convicted of crimes.

In a public debate reported by the BBC, questions have been raised about the effectiveness of the orders to leave the country, with Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure saying the suspect “should have gone straight from prison to the plane”.

Sandrine Rousseau of the Ecologist party warned that the far-right “will exploit it (the murder – ed.) to spread racist and xenophobic hatred.”

The far-right and nationalist party National Assembly had argued that the case was yet another example of the leniency of the French judicial system.

“This migrant had no right to be here, but he could have committed another crime with complete impunity. Our justice system is too lenient. Our state is dysfunctional (…). It's time for the government to act,” party president Jordan Bardella wrote on social media on Tuesday.

The National Assembly has more than 120 members in parliament, which gives it some influence over its actions. Prime Minister Michel Barnier's minority government could at any moment face the prospect of a vote of no confidence, which the National Assembly could seek, the BBC reports.

The case is the first test for France's new interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, who took office last week, after declaring that his three top priorities are “establishing order, establishing order and establishing order.”

On Wednesday morning, he published a post on the X platform in which he said that “after the arrest of the alleged perpetrator of the murder of the Filipina, I would like to convey my support and warm thoughts to the family of this young girl.” He assessed that “this crime is disgusting,” but “in the face of such a tragedy, preceded by many others, we cannot simply regret or be outraged.”

“It is up to us, public officials, (…) to develop our legal arsenal to protect the French. Because this is the first of their rights and, consequently, the first of our duties. If the rules need to be changed, let's change them,” he stressed.

The murder of a young student has raised concerns about safety in the park, which borders expensive neighbourhoods in Paris’ 16th arrondissement.

The Bois de Boulogne has long been a centre for prostitution, but locals say parts of it have become even more dangerous in recent years, partly because of the drugs available there.