A 23-year-old man walked into a police station in the southern village of Bellegarde on Tuesday evening to ask police to verify whether he may have committed the sexual assault and murder of a young girl.

"/> A 23-year-old man walked into a police station in the southern village of Bellegarde on Tuesday evening to ask police to verify whether he may have committed the sexual assault and murder of a young girl.

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New suspect in murder of 8-year-old girl

A 23-year-old man walked into a police station in the southern village of Bellegarde on Tuesday evening to ask police to verify whether he may have committed the sexual assault and murder of a young girl.

Published: 9 November 2011 09:23 CET

Eight-year-old Océane went missing on Saturday evening after going to visit a friend. Her body was found in a vineyard on Sunday morning after an extensive search involving police and 300 volunteers.

The autopsy revealed the girl had been sexually molested before being suffocated. She had also been stabbed four times, most likely after her death.

News channel LCI reported that the new suspect is a drug user who is known to police.

Public prosecutor Robert Gelli said the man “couldn’t remember what he did on Saturday evening” as he was drunk. “He had a blackout” he said.

He is being tested for a DNA match and was still being questioned on Wednesday morning.

Earlier, a 73-year-old man who had been held for questioning since Sunday was released after DNA tests revealed no match. The man, a neighbour of the girl’s family, had a previous conviction for sexual assaults on young boys.

Locals told journalists the uncertainty was causing continuing concern in the village of 6,000 inhabitants.

“We are looking at everyone, wondering who it can be. It must be someone from the village,” said one woman, named Véronique, to news channel BFM TV.

Océane’s parents are believed to have left the village to stay with relatives. A march in memory of the girl will be held on Wednesday.

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French teen dies from heart failure after knife attack near school

The teenager “was rescued by teachers who were very fast to call the fire department. She died at the end of the afternoon,” education official Olivier Faron said.

The girl’s middle school in the village of Souffelweyersheim closed its doors on Thursday afternoon after a man stabbed two other girls aged 7 and 11 outside a nearby primary facility.

“Sadly this pupil underwent an episode of very high stress that led to a heart attack,” Faron said.

A mother outside the middle school on Friday morning said her son in first year of secondary had also been scared during the lockdown the previous day.

“Whereas in the primary school they made it more like a game, perhaps here it was a little too direct,” Deborah Wendling said.

“He thought there was an armed person in the school. They could hear doors slamming, but in fact it was just other classrooms locking down.”

Faron defended the teachers.

READ ALSO: Schoolgirl threatens teacher with knife as tensions rise in French schools

“There is no perfect solution,” he said.

But “we will analyse in depth what happened. If there are lessons to be taken from this, we will take them.”

The two girls hurt in the attack were discharged from hospital on Thursday evening with only light wounds.

Police have arrested the 30-year-old assailant, and a probe has been opened into “attempted murder of minors”, the prosecutor’s office said.

It was not immediately clear what had motivated him, but it did not appear to be “a terrorist act”, it said.

He was “psychiatrically fragile” and appeared to have stopped his medication.

The incident follows a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Thursday announced measures to crack down on teenage violence in and around schools.

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