Three held in France after 7-year-old girl’s drowning

Three men were in custody on Monday over the capsizing of a migrant boat in northern France in which a seven-year-old girl drowned, prosecutors said.

Published: 4 March 2024 12:14 CET

Three held in France after 7-year-old girl's drowning

lllustration photo by BERTRAND GUAY / AFP

The suspects were aboard the overloaded small boat when it capsized on Sunday in the Aa river, around 30 kilometres from France’s northern coast.

“We have to work out who was responsible for this group, who brought the victims aboard the boat,” prosecutors in the northern French city of Dunkirk said.

People attempting to reach Britain have increasingly been boarding boats on inland waterways to avoid stepped-up patrols on the French coast.

Among the passengers in the capsizing were ten children aged seven to 13 and six adults, investigators said on Sunday.

The latest death of a migrant trying to reach Britain followed just days after a 22-year-old Turkish man was killed and two more people went missing in the English Channel off Calais.

A total of 78 migrants attempting to cross to Britain were pulled from the sea by French rescuers overnight from Saturday to Sunday, the maritime authority for northern France said.

One group of 11 people was retrieved after they ran aground on a sandbank.

Further rescue operations were underway on Monday morning, with fair weather apparently encouraging more crossing attempts.

More than 670 people reached Britain from France in small boats in February, according to British interior ministry figures, compared with 29,437 over the whole of 2023.

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The report – released on the eve of the World Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia – documents a 13 percent jump in anti-LGBTQ offences from 2022.

More serious crimes including assaults, threats, and harassment saw a 19 percent increase, with 2,870 instances recorded by French authorities.

“It feels like the embers of LGBTI-phobia have been lit, and now the fire is ready to take hold,” said president of French activist group SOS Homophobie Julia Torlet.

“What worries us most are the emerging trends…we are extremely concerned,” Torlet added, saying “if the government doesn’t act” France risks backsliding into the violence seen in 2013 over the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

The number of anti-LGBTQ incidents has risen sharply – about 17 percent on average each year for crimes and misdemeanours – since 2016, according to the interior ministry.

But these figures only paint part of the picture.

Men account for the majority of both victims and perpetrators in anti-LGBTQ incidents, accounting for 70 and 82 percent, respectively.

Moreover, the perpetrators are predominately young, with nearly half of all accused under 30 and more than a third under 19, says the report.

While the report says victims are now “better received” by authorities, only 20 percent of those subjected to threats or violence and five percent of victims of verbal abuse file a complaint.

“We’re past the worry stage,” spokesman for Stop Homophobie Maxime Haes told AFP.

Anti-LGBTQ acts are linked to the “drastic increase in LGBT-phobic discourse,” said Haes, which he says are fuelled by “the rise of the far right and religious extremism”.

The owner of a bar in Nantes, a city in western France, told regional newspaper Ouest-France it cancelled an LGBTQ-friendly event in early May over safety concerns after a poster featuring individuals in religious habits sparked an “outpouring of hate” online.

And in France, 60 percent of people avoid holding hands with same-sex partners for fear of being assaulted, according to a 2024 report from the European Agency for Fundamental Rights.

The country has also seen a spike in transphobic discourse, Haes said.

SOS Homophobie has denounced what it calls “abysmal government silence” and criticised the lack of “ambitious policy” on LGBTQ issues even after the appointment of out gay Prime Minister Gabriel Attal earlier this year.

“Hate speech is not being combatted at all by politicians,” Haes of Stop Homophobie added.