Two similar dramas, two divergent reactions. On October 14, 2022, Lola, a 12-year-old girl, was murdered in Paris. The main suspect in the case, Dahbia B., is an Algerian subject to an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF). The right blames the non-execution of this removal measure, Fabien Roussel remains more discreet. The boss of the communists then evokes an “infanticide”, and a “pedocriminal” act, comparable to those committed by Michel Fourniret or Nordahl Lelandais.
The death of Philippine, a young woman of 19, marks an evolution in the analysis of the national secretary of the PCF. Here too, the suspect – Taha O., a 22-year-old Moroccan – was targeted by an OQTF. He was also convicted of a rape committed in 2019 in Val-d’Oise. On X, Roussel gives a dense explanation of the tragic spiral: “The law exists and is not applied. A rapist is a criminal. He should have been monitored. be expelled. It has not been done. The State is failing. With this message, published in the wake of the tragedy, the head of the French Communist Party intends to “break a taboo on the left”, says one of his close friends. He affirms it, without convolutions – and clashes on the port side: Philippine’s death is also linked to the management of immigration in France.
“Why couldn’t we combine the two explanations?”
The left did not remain silent after this tragedy. Although timid when it comes to making the news item a political object, she intends to impose her own reading of Philippine’s murder. And lead the cultural battle against an offensive right on the theme of migration. Contrary to Fabien Roussel, his representatives mainly call for thinking about the murder of Philippine through the prism of feminicides, and not of immigration. Like the environmentalist MP Sandrine Rousseau, who considers that “women are in danger in a thousand and one ways under the violence of men”, concerning those “of all colors and all situations”. Or the ex-Insoumise Clémentine Autain, regretting that we are talking about the OQTF, in other words “the hunt for migrants, and not the way to protect women”, the “real subject”, according to the MP. “The far right reacts when feminicides are committed by people of foreign nationalities,” judges Manuel Bompard, LFI coordinator.
Gradually on the left, this view is asserting itself with force… Even if it means becoming the inverted mirror of the right, with a distinct but equally univocal message. To the regret, sometimes, of certain deputies, like Emmanuel Maurel: “And why could we not articulate the two explanations, to say that it is both feminicide, that the criminal under OQTF would not have must have been present on our territory?” It’s not a win. At the PCF, more or less subliminal messages are pouring in against the boss. In a press release signed Roussel, the place of Colonel-Fabien finally tries to appease, calling for “a massive investment in the fight against violence against women”.
Already seen
The episode feels like déjà vu. Like the Lola affair, when the main suspect is the subject of an OQTF. The right points out the low rate of execution of these removal measures, while part of the left focuses on the psychiatric profile of the accused. Or in June 2023, when a Syrian refugee attacked children in Annecy with a knife “in the name of Jesus Christ”. The right demands an overhaul of our asylum policy, while the Insoumis point out “the problem of mental health in France”. Here, Philippine’s murder is femicide for some; it is the deleterious consequence of uncontrolled immigration (or immigration in short) for others. The double reading grid organizes the war of position between the right and the left.
The groping of the left responds to the martiality of the right and the extreme right. Here the disputes over interpretation are less: the country’s penal and administrative chain is at the center of the grievances. So here is the National Rally which is tabling a bill to “facilitate the expulsion of foreigners constituting a threat to France”. Or the Republican Right (DR), the next day, claiming to want to “extend the maximum period of detention of illegal immigrants to 135 days instead of the 90 currently planned”, or even to 210 days “for a foreigner convicted of a crime”. No credence is given to the arguments of the left. The DR MP, Frédérique Meunier, regrets this: “It’s true that we are too divided… I think we surely lack open-mindedness.”
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