Abbé Pierre accused of sexual assault: nine new accusations of sexual violence revealed

Abbé Pierre is the target of nine new accusations of sexual violence, including rape of a minor and “incestuous abuse”according to a report from the specialist firm Egaé published Monday commissioned by Emmaüs management. “The events described took place from the 1960s to the 2000s, most of the time in France and sometimes abroad”we can read in this report which brings to 33 the number of testimonies targeting the priest who died in 2007.

According to information from Parisianthis third report reveals manipulation and sexual assault on children and adults. A minor boy, who remained anonymous, was raped by Abbé Pierre according to the report. Another victim, who is a female member of his family, was sexually abused at “late 1990s”.

The other victims, designated only by letters in the report, have varied profiles. We find in particular two caregivers from a hospital, including one who was expecting a baby when he touched her on the stomach and chest. Another person named “CC”, aged around twenty at the time of the events, was working for Emmaüs France when Abbé Pierre told him “touched the breasts and brutally introduced his tongue” in the young woman's mouth.

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“He put his tongue in my mouth”: a journalist accuses Abbé Pierre of having sexually assaulted her in 1988

“A stack of photos”

According to the testimony of another victim, Henry Grouès took photos of her before storing the photo taken with his Polaroid in a drawer containing “a stack of photos” similar. According to Caroline De Haas, associate director of the Egaé group, there would be “at least 57 other victims identified”but not all of them wanted to testify.

Véronique Maegron, the president of the Conference of Religious Men and Women of France, who collected the first testimony at the origin of this affair explains that “with the hindsight we have on this type of affair, we must fear two to three times more at least, between those who will not dare to speak, those who experience traumatic dissociation”.

Still according to our colleagues, the latter had notably been sent to Switzerland for six months, to a psychiatric clinic following the first revelations written by the Church in the 1950s mentioning inappropriate behavior on the part of the abbot.