French police have arrested a suspected serial murderer at the train station in Toulon.
The man was reported to police when he attempted to assault a woman on a train on Thursday morning. His appearance matches that of the main suspect in the murder of a homeless man in Lyon, killed when bricks were thrown at his head. Police in Toulon noticed that the man looked like the Lyon assailant, down to the detail of the orange shoelaces he was wearing. Images from surveillance video of the Lyon murder had been circulated on social media since Monday.
The suspect is also believed to be the perpetrator of a string of attempted murders that took place in Évry, Strasbourg, and Dijon, as well as in Rotterdam, where police reported an attack with a concrete slab on a homeless man.
In police custody and under questioning, he told the authorities that he is a Cameroon national and 37 years old. Police believe they have identified him. He has no previous police record but does have a deportation order against him.
“The French are discovering with horror that the serial killer of homeless people, accused of 5 murders, is in fact an illegal Cameroonian under OQTF and that he was able to enter, leave and return freely to France without the slightest border control. Our lax migratory approach is criminal,” Marion Maréchal posted on X.
Growing outrage around this issue echoes that surrounding Philippine, whose killing is seen as avoidable—had OQTF laws been applied correctly.
