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CRIME

France court jails man for 30 years over torching partner

A French court on Friday sentenced a man to 30 years in jail for burning his partner alive for trying to leave him.

French police logo on a police car
A photograph shows a French police logo on a police car. On Friday, a French man was jailed for 30 years for torching his partner. (Photo by FRED TANNEAU / AFP)

Jonathan Boillet, 36, has been on trial since Tuesday at a criminal court in northern France for murdering 33-year-old Sandy Cucheval in November 2020.

He burnt the mother of four alive in a car they were travelling in. She was admitted to the burns unit at a hospital in the northern city of Lille where she died a week later.

The regional criminal court in the city of Saint-Omer sentenced him to 30 years in prison with a minimum of 20 years without parole, and mandatory treatment for his alcohol and drug addictions.

Boillet initially denied murdering Cucheval, claiming she died as the result of an accident.

On Thursday he finally said: “It was me who doused her in petrol.”    

On the floor of a garage afterwards, Cucheval herself had told a policewoman that Boillet had poured petrol on her and then set her alight.

A local resident said she saw the car bursting into flames and the woman getting out of the vehicle like “a human torch”.

Cucheval had four children, the youngest just three-and-a-half years old at the time.

She had been with Boillet for several months, but wanted to leave him.

At the age of eight, Boillet was sexually assaulted and raped by an uncle eight years his senior. When he was 11, he began abusing alcohol and drugs.

He has an extensive criminal record, including four convictions for domestic violence, and admits having violent outbursts.

On average, one woman is killed every three days in France.

According to the justice ministry, 94 women were killed in 2023.

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CRIME

Teens charged in France over plot to attack Jewish targets: judicial source

French prosecutors have charged a 19-year-old man and a youth in the Paris region with planning a "terrorist" attack on Jewish targets, a judicial source told AFP on Friday.

Teens charged in France over plot to attack Jewish targets: judicial source

While no details on the pair have been released, French anti-terrorist investigators have expressed increased concern over the young age of some suspects detained in recent months for planning militant attacks.

The 19-year-old has been charged with “terrorist conspiracy” to commit attacks and the “acquisition and possession of arms for a terrorist enterprise,” said the judicial source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

READ ALSO: Anti-Semitism fears stalk Jewish voters’ choice in France

The youth aged under 18 was detained on June 13, the source said.

The pair made contact on social media and were planning a “a violent action notably aiming at Jewish targets,” said the source without giving details on the plot.

Anti-terrorism investigators say a growing number of youths have been held in recent months for preparing attacks.

READ ALSO: French election breakdown: TV debates, polling latest and anti-Semitism

“This is a necessarily worrying phenomenon,” senior anti-terrorist prosecutor Olivier Christen said at an evidentiary hearing on Wednesday.

French politicians have also condemned a growing number of attacks on the country’s Jewish community, the biggest outside Israel and the United States.

Outrage has been expressed over the rape of a 12-year-old Jewish girl in a park in the Paris suburbs last Saturday. Two 13-year-old boys have been charged with rape and making anti-Semitic insults.

Several protest rallies have been held in Paris and other French cities over the case which comes as France prepares for a national election in which the far-right National Rally party is tipped to make major gains. 

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