Rape, sexual assault. In an investigation broadcast on BFMTV, several women present Abbé Pierre as a sexual predator. New testimonies six months after the publication of the report in which 24 women, including three minors at the time of the events, had made serious accusations against the founder of Emmaüs.
“He was kissing me, putting his tongue in my mouth. It was disgusting,” says Pascale, who kept silent for thirty-one years. Then in a precarious situation, she was taken in in 1993 by the man of the Church in a rest home for former companions of Emmaus. “I was stuck. I could have filed a complaint, but I didn’t. I was so convinced that no one would believe me…”
“Attacking this icon was unthinkable”
“Attacking the abbot was unthinkable. It was an icon and Emmaüs a social work,” recalls director Patrick Charles-Messance. In 2007, “when I proposed this subject on the hidden side of Abbé Pierre, no channel responded positively. » In her documentary, former model and author Sanda Slag testified on camera. “When it hit him all at once, he would jump on me with violence. He held onto my breasts, twisted them, tried to kiss me by force. There was no tenderness, it was violence. It was beastly,” she recalls.
“Abbot Pierre has this image of humility. However, his sexual practices are practices of domination and power,” summarizes Carole Damiani, director of Paris victim support. “He took advantage of my mother’s weakness at a time when she needed moral support after filing for divorce for domestic violence,” recalls Eva, who found her deceased mother’s notebooks in which she recorded the accusations. against the man who was for a long time the favorite character of the French.
Our file on Abbé Pierre
In 1989 and 1990, his mother, who had asked him to help her, was regularly received in an apartment by the prelate. “He masturbated in front of me, asked me to perform oral sex on him, whipped me and suggested that I have sex with another woman,” reads the young woman in her mother’s notebooks. “He told without any shame the stories of the many abused women, especially undocumented women.”
Abbé Pierre died at the age of 94 on January 22, 2007. Since the Emmaüs Foundation report published in July 2024, numerous complaints have been filed by women or their relatives, by women explaining that they have been victims of man of the Church.
