By Siegfried Mortkowitz Oct 2, 2009, 11:02 GMT
Paris - A shocking murder, by a convicted rapist who was paroled from prison before serving his full sentence, has placed the issue of law and order back at the forefront of French politics.
The death of 42-year-old Marie-Christine Hodeau, who was kidnapped Monday while jogging in a forest south of Paris and then strangled, has inspired calls for harsher penalties and even so-called chemical castration for repeat sexual offenders.
Hodeau was able to alert police via her cellphone from the boot of her eventual killer's car, which led police to the suspect. The 47-year-old man confessed to the murder after his victim's DNA was detected under his fingernails.
Sentenced in 2002 to 11 years in prison for the kidnapping and rape of a 13-year-old girl, the suspect was released for good behaviour in March 2007 and placed under strict judicial supervision until November 2008.
But his early release and the lifting of judicial control have raised an outcry in France.
Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux put the blame squarely on the alleged leniency of the sentencing magistrate, saying the release was 'perfectly unacceptable.'
'A life would have been saved if the law had been applied in the interest of the victims,' he said Thursday, provoking the outrage of judges and a reprimand from Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.
Noting that the judge had flawlessly applied the law in effect, Alliot-Marie said, 'The Interior Minister probably did not have at his disposal all the necessary information.'
But Hortefeux - the president's longtime friend and ally - was only echoing what Sarkozy himself said four years ago after a similar crime.
At the time interior minister, Sarkozy had demanded that the judge 'pay for his mistake' in releasing a repeat offender implicated in the murder of a woman who was also killed while jogging.
This week's murder moved Sarkozy to visit the victim's family and then announce that the government would act to toughen the laws on repeat offenders.
He asked Hortefeux to study ways to reinforce the supervision of released convicts and urged Alliot-Marie to consider changes to the laws on criminals who have paid for their crimes and been released into the general population.
This is old, familiar ground for Sarkozy. Law and order has always been his forte.
His tough stance on crime convinced his political rival, former president Jacques Chirac, to tap him as his interior minister as a means of taking votes from the far-right National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Sarkozy's consistently hard line was not only the single most important reason for Le Pen's political decline, but it also helped catapult him into the Elysee Palace.
The President said the government would present on repeat offenders a bill to Parliament before the end of this month.
A version of the bill had already been presented to the cabinet by former justice minister Rachida Dati in November 2008. But at that time law and order was not priority; it was the economy.
Included in the bill will be a measure allowing the use of medication to reduce the libido and sexual activity of repeat sexual offenders, known as chemical castration. The term is misleading, since it does not involve castration and is generally reversible.
A number of politicians on both the right and left - including Sarkozy's losing opponent in the 2007 presidential election, Segolene Royal - have come out in favour of the treatment on repeat sexual offenders.
It is currently used in several countries, including Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Canada and several states of the United States.
In September, the Polish parliament approved a bill making chemical castration mandatory for people convicted of raping a close family member or a person under 15 years of age.
As interior minister, Sarkozy already pitched the idea in 2005, saying, 'We cannot be afraid of raising the idea of chemical treatments.'
Currently, France's law on chemical castration calls for its use on a voluntary basis, and only while its subject is in prison. The new law, as envisaged by Alliot-Marie, would give the offender a choice.
'It will be either chemical castration or prison. They will have the choice of one or the other,' she said.
However, a parliamentarian from Sarkozy's UMP party, Yves Nicolin, said he would introduce a bill making it mandatory for all men convicted of raping a minor aged 13 or less.
The debate has only begun, and it is certain to heat up as other issues, such as the economy, slowly recede to the background.
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