A man was indicted and imprisoned Wednesday evening for the murder of his companion, from whom he had recently been separated and whose body was discovered in Germany, near the border, we learned from the Metz prosecutor's office .
"The individual was indicted for murder of a recurrent spouse and placed in pre-trial detention,"
the Metz prosecutor's office told AFP.
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"He remains on his first statements"
and denies having killed his companion, aged 43, whose body was discovered on Saturday in a wooded area by walkers in Überherrn, in the border Land of Saarland, added the prosecution.
The 55-year-old man was arrested Monday in a campsite in Hyères (Var).
Placed in custody at the Toulon judicial police service, he was transferred to Metz on Wednesday.
The victim, from whom he was recently separated and who resided in Freyming-Merlebach (Moselle), presented signs of violence on the body.
The autopsy was carried out in Germany, but the causes of death were not communicated, said the Metz prosecutor's office.
The fifty-year-old was sentenced in 1997 to ten years in prison for the murder of a man, a sentence he has fully served.
The victim had filed neither handrail nor complaint for violence, said the Sarreguemines prosecutor's office, initially in charge of the case, but which relinquished jurisdiction in favor of that of Metz, competent in criminal matters for the Moselle.
The investigation, led by the antenna of the judicial police of Metz and the Freyming-Merlebach police station, must determine whether the woman was killed in Moselle and moved to Germany or if the acts were committed in Saarland.
The disappearance of the woman, mother of two grown children, had been reported by those around her at the end of last week.
This case brings to at least 48 the number of suspected femicides since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP count.
In 2019, 146 women were killed by their spouse or ex-partner, 25 more than the previous year, according to the latest official figures.