‘Gut-wrenching pain’: First conviction in French school sex abuse scandal fails to quell parents’ anger

‘Gut-wrenching pain’: First conviction in French school sex abuse scandal fails to quell parents’ anger A Paris court on Tuesday sentenced a former school aide to one year of house arrest with an ankle tag for sexually abusing nine children – the first conviction since a nationwide scandal erupted over abuse in France's childcare system. Nearly 200 similar cases are under investigation in Paris alone, with parents and advocacy groups saying their trust in schools is collapsing. A cascade of child abuse allegations against school aides who mind pupils during after-school "périscolaire" activities has rocked France in recent months. For the first time since the scandal broke, a Paris court on Tuesday sentenced an after-school supervisor. Michael M. was found guilty of sexually abusing nine children aged 5 to 10 between September 2022 and January 2024 at a school in the 15th arrondissement (district) of Paris. The court handed him a five-year term, four of which were suspended, and banned him from working with children ever again. He will serve one year under house arrest with an ankle tag. While a lawyer representing the victims said the court had “recognised the seriousness of the offences”, parent collectives like SOS Périscolaire lamented the sentence as “insufficient”. “The bigger question we should be asking ourselves is whether France’s institutions are ready enough and equipped to listen to and protect children,” said Barka Zerouali, cofounder of the parent collective called #MeTooEcole. Read moreFrance ponders failure to protect children as school abuse scandal rocks Paris “Périscolaire” refers to the care children receive during parts of the school day that fall outside actual lessons, including mealtimes, naps, and the hours before and after school. It can also include extracurricular activities or clubs outside of school. Aides hired to monitor children during these hours aren’t employed nationally by the education ministry the way teachers are, and these jobs often involve short-term contracts, modest wages and little formal training. Testimonials 'insufficient' In Paris alone, 195 school aides have been suspended since the start of the year, 74 of whom are suspected of sexually abusing children. Police are investigating 203 cases of suspected mistreatment, violence or the sexual abuse of young children that allegedly took place during lunch breaks, naps and after-school activities. An estimated 143 took place in nursery schools, 36 in primary schools and 24 in crèches (daycare) across the city. But the scandal stretches well beyond France’s capital to all major cities across the country, from Lille in the north to Marseille in the south. Many parents do not feel they have received justice for what their children suffered. Sports coach and journalist Julie Pujols Benoit, whose son was allegedly abused in April last year by a school supervisor, decided to go public after the suspect was acquitted in July. When she heard in the spring of 2025 that two girls in her son’s nursery had been touched inappropriately by a school aide, she asked her then 4-year-old son if he knew the accused staff member. “Yes, he touches my willy and my bum,” her son told her. “I will remember the gut-wrenching pain his words caused me until the day I die,” Benoit wrote in a post on Instagram. “I haven’t slept since the judge’s decision. I’m thinking of the severe symptoms our children experienced, which vanished as soon as that staff member was suspended. I’m thinking of their immense courage and resilience,” she wrote. “I may be telling the truth here, but I am going to lie to my son. I simply can’t bring myself to tell him the cruel reality of our justice system. He won’t understand, and neither do we.” The court ruled that the allegations of sexual abuse made against the suspect, David G., were insufficiently corroborated by the testimonies of the children. “Discrepancies” were found between the accounts the children gave to their parents and those given to investigators, with some children remaining silent when questioned by the child protection unit. A lawyer representing the six families who filed a complaint against David G. said they were left with an “immense sense of injustice”. A ‘failure to protect’ children “Parents are exhausted and angry,” said Zerouali of the parents' collective. “One mother told me that after learning her daughter had been abused, she moved in with her own mother and cut back to working part-time, all so she wouldn’t have to leave her daughter at school. That is the reality of things.” The first cases of abuse in Paris emerged in 2014, but parents' groups say their concerns fell on deaf ears for years. Last week, 17 families from the #MeTooEcole collective whose children attend schools in the 9th, 11th and 15th arrondissements filed a complaint against former mayor Anne Hidalgo and her education deputy at the time, Patrick Bloche, as well as current Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire. They accused the officials of three separate charges: deliberately endangering the lives of others, failure to report abuse or offences against minors, and failure to assist a person in danger. During a senate hearing on Tuesday, Hidalgo admitted that authorities had "failed to protect our children” despite being aware of the allegations of abuse spanning more than a decade. The hearing continued on Wednesday, with Grégoire expressing his “deepest regrets for what happened”. “I am aware of and I hear the distress, anger and concern, as well as the erosion of trust in school aides and after-school programmes,” he added. Grégoire went on to outline key measures of a new €20 million action plan, including reconfiguring “sensitive” areas in schools like bathrooms and ensuring no child is accompanied by only one adult. A new training centre is planned for school aides and périscolaire staff must now wear ID badges, with their photographs displayed in schools so that they are recognisable. ‘We feel a little crazy’ Lucille* has a 7-year-old son who has participated in almost all of the périscolaire activities offered since he started school at age 3. This summer, she signed him up for a recreational summer school programme. The person in charge of overseeing the programme and staff notified parents by email in August that an aide was suspected of sexual abuse and had been removed. “All the things we had read or heard about in other schools suddenly hit much closer to home,” she said. “But I wasn’t too worried about my son. His father and I have taught him since a young age about things other adults are not allowed to do.” The email came with a guide on how to speak to children about the issue and tips on gently inquiring whether they have been harmed. “I put into practice what the guide suggested and I was reassured, because he took a sort of cowboy approach to the whole thing. ‘If anyone comes near me, I’ll kick them,’ he told me. He didn’t mention experiencing inappropriate behaviour by an aide.” Lucille and other parents had alerted the headmaster at her son’s nursery that they were concerned about an aide last year. “He was a middle-aged man who would take kids on his lap, give them chewing gum, show them videos. We weren’t reassured and the headmaster also thought something was off, so she immediately took action and launched an internal investigation. I don’t know the details but the probe found he was not fit to work with children and so he was fired,” she recounted. The fact that her concerns were taken seriously and action was taken brought Lucille a sense of relief. “If I hadn’t had this reassuring experience, I think we would do things differently with our son. We would hire a nanny or find another solution to fill the gaps outside classroom hours,” she said. “But it’s true that sometimes we feel a little crazy leaving our children at school, knowing everything that is happening.” *Name has been changed