Summer 1997, Clergy Sex Abuse Shock France

Reuters
7/25/1997

PARIS — France has been shocked this summer by continuing allegations
and revelations of the extent of sexual abuse of children in this
country. Among the accused are some of the most trusted figures in
French society, teachers, youth camp counselors and priests.

The French scandals came about in large part, according to law
enforcement officials, due to the Dutroux affair which convulsed
neighboring Belgium in horror last year. Marc Dutroux, 40, was charged
with kidnapping at least 6 girls and sexually assaulting them in an
underground cell he built. At least 2 of the 4 girls whose bodies have
been recovered starved to death in their dungeon after Dutroux, a
convicted child rapist, was arrested. The country was scandalized not
only by the blunders of police and prosecutors but also by the high-
level protection that Dutroux and his accomplices appeared to enjoy.

In June, in what was reportedly the largest police dragnet in French
history, gendarmes in nearly all parts of the country — including the
South Pacific territories of New Caledonia and French Polynesia —
raided 815 homes of suspected purchasers of cassettes of child
pornography. Five people committed suicide soon afterward, prompting
accusations that the authorities were engaging in a "witch hunt."

Near Narbonne in the south, a stock of more than 200 videocassettes
depicting child sex were seized from a clergyman's residence.

In the small village of Vavincount in Lorraine in eastern France, a
popular boys' choir director, Abbot Jean-Marie Vincent, 63, was seized
by police and charged with raping and assaulting his charges. He
confessed soon afterwards. The cleric had received a bevy of
government decorations for organizing summer youth camps and his work
with a singing group whose third CD includes a song written by him,
dedicated to the victims of "big bad men."

On the island of Corsica, prosecutors demanded a court injunction that
would bar Fr. Jose Antonini, accused of fondling a 14-year-old boy
spending school vacations in his home, from getting too close to
children.

In July, New Age guru Guy-Claude Berger, 67, an advocate of eating
only raw food, was jailed on charges that he sexually abused children
at the chateau southeast of Paris that serves as headquarters for his
cult.

The suspicions raised have worried the workers at the National
Telephone Center for Abused Children, who fear that the media coverage
of child molesters outside the family will detract from the even
greater problems within.

In the meantime, said the hotline director, "Now in Paris, you feel
that, if you smile at a baby on the Metro, people will get antsy."
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