Trial of Former Surgeon Accused of Abusing Nearly 300 Opens in France
A former surgeon went on trial in western France on Monday on charges that he raped or sexually assaulted hundreds of people, most of them former pediatric patients, in what is widely considered the biggest pedophilia case in French history.
The former surgeon, Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, is accused of raping or sexually assaulting 299 people over 25 years, from 1989 to 2014. Almost all of the victims are his former patients, and almost all of them were children at the time of the alleged abuse. The average age of the patients he is accused of sexually assaulting was 11.
The trial opened in the coastal town of Vannes, in Brittany, where Mr. Le Scouarnec was led in by police officers at the start of proceedings.
Wearing a black vest, with a bald head and a ring of white hair on the back and sides, he spoke in a clear, slightly hoarse voice as the court confirmed his name, date of birth, and other biographical information.
“Your profession before you were incarcerated?” asked Aude Buresi, the presiding judge.
“Surgeon,” Mr. Le Scouarnec answered calmly.
He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted, because there are no consecutive sentences in France. He has denied some charges of rape but admitted to touching some patients’ genitals during medical examinations. The rape charges are mostly related to penetration with fingers, which reflects the definition of rape in France.
Maxime Tessier, one of Mr. Le Scouarnec’s lawyers, told the court on Monday that his client acknowledged responsibility for “a vast majority” of the allegations of abuse.
The proceedings are expected to last nearly four months. While Monday was devoted mostly to procedural matters, the court is expected to hear later in the week about Mr. Le Scouarnec’s personality and family history.
Mr. Le Scouarnec’s listed victims were spread around the west of France, following his career as he moved from the Indre-et-Loire area to Brittany, and finally south to Charente-Maritime, working in several private clinics and public hospitals.
The case is unprecedented in scale for Vannes, a picturesque town of about 54,000 people with colorful half-timbered houses and centuries-old ramparts.
Modeling their organization after the colossal trials held in Paris after devastating terrorist attacks in France in 2015 and in 2016, the local court authorities have made space for hundreds of people attending the trial.
That includes those listed as victims and their families, over 60 lawyers, the general public, and more than 450 accredited journalists from as far as Japan and Australia.
The local authorities have requisitioned a low-slung, former law school building that is a short walk from the courthouse to rebroadcast the proceedings in overflow rooms.
A psychologist and support dogs will be on hand, and as was the case in France’s biggest terrorism trials, listed victims will wear colored lanyards — green if they are willing to talk to the press, red if not.
Some victims have asked to testify behind closed doors, meaning some days will be closed to the press and public.
Opening just two months after the verdicts in the widely publicized case of Gisèle Pelicot — in which dozens of men, including her husband, were convicted of raping her — this trial is expected to provoke more soul-searching about the extent of sex crimes in France.
Many of the victims were still under anesthesia or drowsy from it when they were believed to have been raped or sexually assaulted. Many of the victims experienced trauma in the years that followed, but few remembered the abuse until the police contacted them.
Mr. Le Scouarnec has already been convicted twice. In 2005 he was found guilty of possessing child sexual abuse imagery, but he was allowed to continue to treat children until he was arrested in 2017.
Then, in 2020, he was found guilty of raping or sexually assaulting four children, including a girl who lived next door and two of his nieces.
After Mr. Le Scouarnec’s arrest in that case, investigators found hundreds of pages of his diaries as well as two spreadsheets on hard drives.
The diaries elaborately detailed the sexual abuse of individual children and the spreadsheets listed many of their names, ages, addresses and synopses of the abuse they suffered.