French justice minister says 970 child sex-abuse allegations are priority cases

France's Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said Wednesday that prosecutors had identified 970 allegations of child sex abuse as priority cases, as he faced pressure over the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

The girl, Lyhanna, went missing in southwestern France in late May. Her body was found days later in an abandoned silo. The main suspect, identified as Jerome B., is the father of one of her friends and had worked in schools. He had been accused months earlier of repeatedly raping another child, but authorities had not questioned him.

Darmanin, who has been under pressure to resign, ordered prosecutors to review all pending child sex abuse allegations before the summer holidays. He said prosecutors had gone through tens of thousands of accusations and marked 970 as high priority because the child was still a minor and the suspect had previously been accused.

Darmanin drew anger from members of the justice system last month when he said he would sanction a magistrate who had worked on the earlier accusations against Jerome B. Two senior prosecutors accused him last month of seeking a scapegoat and said he was responsible for what they described as systemic failures in protecting children in France.

A 2022 government report said limited resources were available to properly investigate child abuse allegations. It found that in 70 percent of cases, after the suspect was heard, investigators did not carry out a further search for material evidence from a phone, camera or computer.

CIIVISE, an independent commission, says investigations are dropped in almost three out of four complaints of alleged sexual abuse of a minor. It says only seven percent of complaints for sexual assault of a minor lead to a conviction, and only three percent do so for alleged rape. The commission says the accused person is a family member or close acquaintance in most cases.