'We got justice!' Migrant who murdered schoolgirl, 12, handed harshest possible sentence in French law

Benkired lured the girl into an apartment, sexually assaulted her, and attacked her with scissors and a box cutter.

She then bound the 12-year-old with tape, suffocating her to death, before partially severing her head and stuffing her body into a suitcase.

The Algerian has been sentenced to life imprisonment, becoming the first woman in France to receive such a punishment.

It's the harshest sentence possible since France abolished the death penalty in 1981, and has only been used in extraordinary cases.

Salah Abdeslam, the sole Islamist terrorist to have survived the Isis November 2015 Paris attacks, was given the same prison term.

The judge at Paris's Assize Court condemned Benkired's "extreme cruelty" and "true torture" of young Lola.

"In determining the appropriate sentence, the court took into account the unspeakable psychological damage to the victim and her family in such violent and almost unspeakable circumstances," he said.

Prosecutors had revealed how the migrant had "psychopathic" traits but was otherwise sane.

"Make no mistake: no drug treatment can fundamentally transform Ms Benkired's personality. When there is no illness, there is no treatment," one said.

Benkired was in France on a student visa, which she failed to renew. In July 2022, just months before the October murder, she was stopped at an airport in Paris and given 30 days to leave the country.

In the days after Lola's death, the French right-wing rallied against the killer. The National Rally party's Jordan Bardella said Benkired "had no business being in France".

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Hard-right firebrand Eric Zemmour dubbed the murder "Francocide" - the murder of a French person - and warned that the migrant "should never have crossed [Lola's] path".

But the girl's parents cast down "any use of the name and image of [our] child for political ends".

Her father, Johan Daviet, is said to have become an alcoholic and separated from his wife after the death of his daughter. He later died.

Speaking at the court on the first day of Benkired's trial, Lola's brother Thibault spoke for the family, including Mr Daviet, "who is unfortunately no longer here because of the same person", referring to Benkired.

And following the verdict, the 12-year-old's mother Delphine said in tears: "Even if this won’t bring my Lola back, we believed in justice and we got it, we got it. Thank you."

While Marine Le Pen, the leader of National Rally, said: "By applying the most severe punishment provided for in the criminal code, the justice system has not shirked its responsibilities.

"To protect society from these predators, we must go further: life imprisonment for the perpetrators of these barbaric crimes, followed by the systematic deportation of foreign criminal offenders."