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CRIME

France arrests man over murder of woman and four children: police source

French police on Tuesday arrested a man suspected of murdering a mother and her four children found dead at home on Christmas Day, a law enforcement source said.

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People bring bunches of flowers to the flat where the bodies of a woman and her four children where discovered, in Meaux, eastern Paris, on December 26, 2023. - French police arrested, the father, suspected of murdering his wife and their four children aged nine months, four, seven and 10 years old, opening an inquiry into their "premeditated murder", in Meaux, eastern Paris, on December 26th, 2023. Photo by: ALAIN JOCARD / AFP

Authorities discovered the bodies of the woman and her children aged nine months, four, seven and 10 years old in their flat in the town of Meaux east of Paris on Monday evening after worried relatives sounded the alarm, local prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier said.

The police source said the main suspect had been detained in the nearby town of Sevran.

“The flat showed no sign of breaking and entering, and the father was absent,” he said earlier.

A source close to the case said the 35-year-old mother and her children were killed with “a cold weapon”, a term usually used to refer to a knife.

The source said police had been looking for a 33-year-old man.

The Versailles judicial police service opened an inquiry into “premeditated murder”.

The Paris region has recently seen a series of infanticides.

In late November, a 41-year-old man confessed to killing his three daughters, aged four to 11, and turned himself in.

Police found them dead in his home in the town of Alfortville, in the south-eastern suburbs of the capital.

A month earlier, in October, a gendarme killed his three daughters before killing himself at his home in Vemars, northeast of the capital.

On average, a woman is killed every three days in France. Some 118 women were killed by their partner or ex-partner in France last year.

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CRIME

French cinema boss on trial for sexual assault

The head of France's top cinema institution Dominique Boutonnat denied sexually assaulting his godson as he went on trial Friday in a case that has led to calls for him to step down.

French cinema boss on trial for sexual assault

The trial comes as French cinema reels from a renewed #MeToo reckoning that has seen several big names, including acting legend Gerard Depardieu, accused of sexual abuse.

READ ALSO: French actor Gérard Depardieu to be tried for sexual assault in October

Activists have denounced Boutonnat’s continued leadership of the National Centre of Cinema (CNC), whose role includes overseeing measures to curb sexual violence in the industry.

His godson accuses him of trying to masturbate him during a holiday in Greece in 2020 when he was 19.

“I looked at him to find my godfather and that’s when I saw someone completely different… It was someone using me to masturbate,” the godson, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court.

Boutonnat responded in court that it was his godson who had initiated the situation and kissed him.

“I feel bad about leaving an ambiguous situation, but to say there was a sexual assault is false,” he told the court.

He was placed under investigation in February 2021 but still reappointed by the government as head of the CNC in July 2022.

Training to prevent abuse has in recent months become obligatory for films seeking public funding via the CNC.

The CNC told AFP that the case against Boutonnat came from “the private sphere” and had no relation to its activities.

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