Untouchable for too long: Surgeon Le Scouarnec in France's biggest serial rape trial

The Debate

With 299 victims over 25 years, why wasn’t serial rapist Joël Le Scouarnec stopped sooner? Closing arguments in the trial of the 74-year-old surgeon in the western French city of Vannes. We’ll ask about a man convicted of purchasing child pornography online two decades ago and yet investigators failed to uncover worse crimes and the medical board allowed him to continue to practice.

France’s largest-ever sex abuse trial concludes, exposing decades of abuse at the Bétharram Catholic school in the southwest. The children of Prime Minister François Bayrou attended the school, where his wife also worked. Bayrou, however, maintains that he was unaware of the abuse at the time. At what point does it become a cover-up and when does deference cross a line in a nation where children are taught to obey authority figures?

Most important are the victims. On the stand, Le Scouarnec eventually confessed – but to the plaintiffs, his answers felt mechanical, devoid of real remorse. Why is it so often the victims who carry the shame? Two of them took their own lives. How can that shame be overcome, and how does one begin to find closure?

Produced by Théophile Vareille, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.