Najlae Lhimer, 19, was arrested in France and deported to Casablanca, Morocco, after pressing charges against her brother.
In the rural French village where she lived for the past five years, Najlae Lhimer was known to people - if they knew her at all - as the pretty woman from Morocco who volunteered at the local library and attended a nearby vocational school.
All that changed three weeks ago, when the slim 19-year-old sought help from the police after being beaten black and blue by an older brother who had tried to forbid her from studying.
Within the space of 15 hours, Miss Lhimer was arrested, charged with being an illegal immigrant, bundled onto an airplane in tears and deported to Casablanca where she knew no one. "I thought that at least in France the law would protect me," she told her French friends in an e-mail from Morocco. "I'm lost here."
But back in the village of Château-Renard, an isolated hamlet with timbered stone buildings at the edge of a ruined 10th century castle, she was not forgotten.
Her neighbours mobilized. They printed up posters with her picture and contacted lawyers. They held a protest rally in the village - population 2,345 - that drew some 300 people. They petitioned celebrities, politicians, immigrant advocates and women's activists.
In absentia, Ms. Lhimer quickly became a cause, a poster child for battered women in France and a flashpoint for criticism of President Nicolas Sarkozy's hard-line policies on immigration.
This week, bowing to the grassroots campaign, the President announced that Ms. Lhimer was welcome to come back.
Immigration Minister Eric Besson said the decision, made public at the end of a communiqué on International Women's Day, was a "humanitarian gesture." If she now requests a visa at the French Consulate in Morocco, he said yesterday, "I am going to give it to her."
Ms. Lhimer told friends she left her family in Morocco because her father wanted to force her into an arranged marriage. She moved in with her brother in Château-Renard, in central France. Two years ago, he reportedly refused to let her switch to a more distant school. When she turned 18 last year, she made the decision herself, signing up for vocational training at a school 90 kilometres away and returning home on weekends.
"She's a serious girl," said Patricia Parisot, whose niece is Ms. Lhimer's best friend. "Her mother left her with that brother, and she's made her way alone in a world of men."
Last month, Ms. Lhimer showed up at the friend's house covered in bruises, saying her brother had beaten her. The French family took her to the hospital and urged her to file a complaint with the police. "That set the whole machine in motion," Ms. Parisot said.
At first, the local gendarmes accompanied Ms. Lhimer home to get clothes and documents. When they returned her to the station at about 3 p.m., they said she was under arrest for being in France illegally. By 5 the next morning, she was on her way to the airport.
From the police car, Ms. Lhimer borrowed a phone and called her substitute family to beg for help.
"My husband didn't hesitate for a second," Ms. Parisot said. "He grabbed a toothbrush and he was out of the house and driving to Paris. By 8 a.m. he was on a plane to Casablanca. He didn't want her to arrive there and find no one and be all by herself."
The Parisots also turned for help to a group called Education Without Borders, a network of volunteers spread across France and other countries who organize protests against deportations and sometimes hide immigrant families.
They have been at loggerheads with Mr. Sarkozy for years over his demand that the police meet annual targets for expulsions. "When it suits him to expel people, he does it and when it's to his advantage, he brings them back," said Richard Moyon, one of the group's founders.
The Parisots, though, were political neophytes with no previous involvement in immigration policy battles until they saw what happened to Miss Lhimer.
"We knew such things happened," Ms. Parisot said. "But when it doesn't touch your own family or you're not directly concerned, you first don't know how to help. It's changed our view of things and it's going to change our lives because we're going to take her in."
Ms. Lhimer's roller-coaster experience may also lead to a change in French immigration laws. Last week, citing her specific case, the usually fractious National Assembly unanimously approved a proposed law that would shield battered immigrant women from deportation.
Following the announcement that she would be welcome to return, Ms. Lhimer was ecstatic. "My life is in France," she told Europe 1 radio, in an interview yesterday. "I'm going to go right back to school because I've missed it so much."