President Macron was forced on to the defensive yesterday after his right-wing challengers seized on the alleged murder of a priest by a failed asylum seeker as proof he has let crime and illegal immigration run riot in France.
As parishioners attended a mass for the late Father Olivier Maire, far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and rival conservative contenders criticised a system that freed the Rwandan man despite a pending trial for arson.
According to accounts from the prosecutor and the police, Emmanuel Abayisenga turned himself in on Monday and confessed to battering Maire to death. The priest, 60, leader of the French wing of the Montfort Missionary Order, died on Monday at its community in western France.
Maire had given shelter to
