In brief
In a landmark case, Dahbia Benkired has been sentenced to a rare whole-life term for the murder and rape of 12-year-old Lola Daviet in Paris. This unprecedented punishment marks her as the first female to receive such a sentence in France, echoing similar penalties for high-profile criminals in the country.
A woman who raped and murdered 12-year-old Lola Daviet in Paris has been handed a rare whole-life sentence in a case that has shocked France.
Dahbia Benkired, aged 27, must spend at least 30 years in prison after a panel of judges and a jury decided to impose the country's harshest possible penalty.
A whole-life term is extremely rare in France, and Benkired is the first woman to receive it.
Those who have been given the sentence include serial killer and rapist Michel Fourniret and jihadist Salah Abdeslam, who took part in the 2015 Paris attacks which killed 130 people.
Lola was murdered in October 2022, and her body was discovered in a trunk not far from her home north-east of Paris.
Benkired is an Algerian immigrant who was under orders to leave the country. French right-wing and far-right politicians have seized on the case.
