Lola’s affair moved the whole of France. The extreme right hastened to seize this affair to denounce an alleged “Francocide” or to transfer the responsibility for this macabre crime to the government, following the non-execution of an obligation to leave French territory, the main suspect was the subject.

“Once again, the suspect of this barbaric act should not have been in France. What are you waiting for to act so that this out-of-control illegal immigration is finally stopped?” notably hammered Marine Le Pen, president of the National Rally group in the National Assembly.

“We obviously have to do better,” said government spokesman Olivier Véran on Wednesday, October 19, about the expulsions of irregular immigrants, reports Le Parisien.

This theme was widely discussed during the campaign for the 2022 presidential election. But in practice, how does an obligation to leave the territory work?

Such a decision is “taken by the prefect, in particular in the event of refusal to issue a residence permit or irregular stay in France”, explains the Ministry of the Interior on its website. In the case of Dahbia B., the alleged murderer of Lola, the reason justifying her obligation to leave French territory is to have stayed in the country longer than the period of validity allowed by her visa.

However, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior, the rate of execution of these decisions has been decreasing since 2012, underlines BFMTV. In 2019, only 12% of them had been executed. Obligations to leave French territory are therefore rarely completed.