France is considering forcing some sex offenders to undergo chemical castration after a public outcry over the murder of a jogger by a rapist who had recently been released from prison.

The prime minister, François Fillon, said the government was looking at legislation on hormonal treatment for offenders after the abduction and killing of Marie-Christine Hodeau.

The 42-year-old, who lived alone with her elderly mother, was snatched on Monday morning while out for her regular jog in a forest south of Paris. Just after 9am, she called police on her mobile phone from the boot of a car, saying she had been grabbed by a man with a knife. She gave the car's number plate, but the call was suddenly interrupted.

Police moved fast to trace the car and its owner, Manuel da Cruz. But for days the French public were gripped as searches did not find the woman. Hodeau's DNA was found under the fingernails of Cruz's left hand and eventually he led police to her naked body, hidden in undergrowth 12 miles from where she was abducted.

According to police accounts, Cruz stopped to change cars after interrupting Hodeau's call. He tied her to a tree while looking for another vehicle. She managed to escape, but he caught her running through the forest and strangled her before disposing of her clothes.

Public shock was compounded when it emerged that Cruz, a 47-year-old concierge and father of four, had served seven years of an 11-year-sentence for kidnapping and raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000. Released from prison on parole, he had moved back to the neighbourhood where his teenage victim lived.

The case has reopened the heated debate on how to deal with reoffenders in France – a favourite subject of President Nicolas Sarkozy, who prides himself on his tough stance on law and order. This week he met Hodeau's family at the Élysée palace.

When, in reaction to the case, a spokesman for Sarkozy's centre-right UMP party called for wider use of chemical castration, an outraged Socialist party spokesman called the idea "deplorable" and "indecent". But several ministers have now suggested a discussion on broadening the use of chemical castration, including the justice minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, and the family minister, Nadine Morano.

Fillon said today: "We are not ruling out any line of reflection on any subject."

Chemical castration is a reversible process in which the administration of drugs or injections lowers the sex drive. France, along with a number of other European countries including Sweden and Denmark, already allows the procedure if offenders agree to it. Poland last month approved a law making chemical castration mandatory for some offenders convicted of sex crimes against children. Several US states enforce similar measures.

"Chemical castration exists today, it just depends on an agreement by the person concerned," Fillon said. "We have to look at how, as part of surveillance and control measures after someone leaves prison, we might make this more restrictive, if necessary. It's a subject we are working on and we will make proposals to parliament."

Sarkozy called for the closer supervision of paroled prisoners and a review of France's criminal psychiatry system. But magistrates unions protested after the interior minister blamed the jogger's murder on lenient judges and parole officers.