After student murder, France's new government heeds RN call to be tougher on security, immigration

PARIS (Reuters) -France's new government is open to toughening immigration laws, it indicated on Wednesday, under pressure from the far-right National Rally (RN) after the arrest of a male Moroccan suspect in the murder of a 19-year-old female student in Paris.

Marine Le Pen's RN party has said in past weeks it reserved the right to withdraw its tacit backing for Prime Minister Michel Barnier's cabinet if its concerns over immigration and other issues were not addressed, saying the fate of the government was in its hands.

"It's time for this government to act: our compatriots are angry and will not be content with just words," RN chief Jordan Bardella said on Tuesday evening of the murder of Philippine, 19, accusing the state of being too soft on security.

"Philippine's life was stolen from her by a Moroccan migrant targeted by an OQTF (obligation to leave France)," he said on social media platform X.

Marine Le Pen's RN party acquired kingmaker status by signalling support for a new coalition between centrists and conservatives, after a July election in which President Emmanuel Macron's centrist government suffered heavy losses.

Philippine's body was found buried in a Paris park on Saturday, French media including Le Parisien reported. The same media said the suspect, a 22-year-old Moroccan, was arrested in Switzerland on Tuesday evening.

On Wednesday morning, speaking just over 12 hours after Bardella pointed to public anger at the killing, new Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said: "If we need to change the rules, let's change them."

"Faced with such a tragedy, preceded by many others, we cannot just condemn it or be outraged," Retailleau said in a statement. "It's up to us, public officials, to ... update our legislation, to protect the French."

Retailleau, from the conservative Republicans party, had already signalled that France is likely to see much tougher immigration and security measures to reflect a broad rightward shift in society.

Greens lawmaker Sandrine Rousseau warned against the far right using the murder to "spread its racist hatred."

The suspect had been due to be expelled from France after serving time in jail for rape, Le Monde newspaper and BFM TV said, and had been sent on June 20 to a detention center for illegal migrants pending his expulsion.

A judge set him free on Sept.3, as the expulsion process was getting bogged down in administrative delays, under the condition that he check in regularly with police and stay on at a specific hotel, French media said. Three days later, the paperwork to expel him was completed, but the man had disappeared, they said.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Ingrid Melander; additional reporting by Makini Brice, Editing by William Maclean)