Thousands of people gather across France on Saturday to demand government action against sexual violence, following the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl that served as a catalyst for mass mobilisation.
The girl, named as Lyhanna, went missing on 29 May in the southwestern town of Fleurance and her body was found in an abandoned silo almost a week later.
Anger grew after it emerged that the main suspect, the 41-year-old father of a school friend, had twice before been formally accused of raping a child but the investigations had been dropped or had stalled.
The tragedy is seen as a failure of a system that could have protected Lyhanna and many other victims but did not.
Feminist and child protection associations want the recognition of the "systemic nature" of sexual violence, and a "comprehensive law" to combat it rather than "piecemeal measures and laws dictated by the urgency of successive cases."
