– Emmaus management had known about it since the 1950s
Personalities of the movement knew the actions of the cleric, and this from the years 1957-1958, reveals “Libération”.
Published today at 10:04 p.m.
Abbé Pierre is accused of sexual assault by several women.
KEYSTONE/Fabrice Coffrini
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Accusations of sexual assault against Abbé Pierre have sparked a wave of indignation in recent months. But since these revelations, the management of Emmaus has remained silent. “Liberation” consulted exclusive documents and reveals that personalities of the movement knew of the actions of the cleric since the years 1957-1958.
In 1957, after several scandals, a crisis broke out within Emmaüs. Abbé Pierre is interned in the Prangins psychiatric clinic and is sidelined from the management of the association. Those responsible for Emmaus and the Catholic Church then jointly manage the consequences of these decisions.
“We are all (when I say all, I mean all the leaders and members of the Emmaüs association up to the committed provincial friends or the religious advisors that we were able to consult) to consider a return to a similar situation as impossible. to that which we have experienced for several months”, wrote Yves Goussault, one of the first companions of Abbé Pierre, on December 27, 1957, in a letter addressed to him.
According to the French media, Yves Goussault was responsible for transmitting information on the sexual violence committed by the cleric to Abbé Pierre’s secretary, Lucie Coutaz. “In terms of the Emmaus council […] only Mlle Coutaz remained aloof, but this was due to the fact that she was totally unaware of the events: I was able to speak at length with her on several occasions,” he explains in this letter.
“Impossible to remain complicit”
The member of the Emmaus management also evokes “the risk we ran” by making several allusions to the scandal caused by the religious, without dwelling on the issue. Yves Goussault says he fears being “responsible for future accidents and perhaps scandals”, mentioning that he has “received multiple confidences for months” and that it is “impossible for him to remain complicit in such situation”.
At the start of his internment in Switzerland, Abbot Pierre also endorsed a protocol concerning him. In particular, he is prohibited from “returning to his usual surroundings in Paris without the formal advice of his attending physician” who is the only one to decide on the “activities in which Abbé Pierre may engage”, details “Libération”, which has had access to the document. Several personalities signed this protocol, including Georges Lillaz, director of the Parisian department store BHV and one of the first patrons of Emmaüs. Lillaz had distanced himself from the movement in the late 1950s.
This attempt at separation fails. In a few months, the founder of Emmaüs questions the Prangins protocol, reconstitutes his Swiss secretariat with the help of his secretary and changes attending physician. Yves Goussault evokes on September 20, 1958, in a confidential note consulted by “Libération”, the risk of returning to an “old chaos”.
More recently, a former manager of the association spoke in an internal letter dated August 6, 2024. “For my part, I knew since the beginning of the 2010s that the first facts date back to 1957, or even before.”
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