Three men in the city of Marseille have been taken into custody by police after allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl in the middle of the street earlier this month.
The three suspects, aged between 18 and 24, were arrested by police last weekend after allegedly sexually abusing the 13-year-old on the night of August 8th and are being held in pre-trial detention.
According to a report from the news website Actu17, the 13-year-old had been walking home in the 13th arrondissement of Marseille when she came across the three men and requested a cigarette from them.
Allegedly, the three men became aggressive with the young teen after realising she was by herself and forced her into an area with no exit and then took turns repeatedly raping her.
After the attack, the men threatened to kill the victim if she spoke to the police and reportedly took photographs of her before abandoning her on the street, a source close to the investigation said.
The victim did talk to the police, however, and they were able to use CCTV footage to identify an 18-year-old suspect who was taken into custody last Friday. Two days later the other suspects, aged 19 and 24, were also taken into custody.
While the 18-year-old claimed he had taken laughing gas that night and did not recall the events of the evening, the other two suspects denied their involvement entirely. A source close to the investigation said their DNA, including semen, was found on the clothing of the girl, however.
The incident is just the latest case of child sex abuse in France and follows a case for earlier this year that saw a man prey on minors in the Paris no-go suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis by blackmailing them for sex on social media.
Child prostitution, another form of child abuse, has increased significantly in France in the last several years, with cases jumping 600 per cent from 2014 to 2020.