France's premier faces questions from an inquiry about a Catholic school abuse scandal

Paris (AP) –

The French Prime Minister François Bayrou should ask himself on Wednesday with questions of a parliamentary examination of alleged abuse at a Catholic school

It is expected that the legislator will ask Bayrou in the private Catholic School Notre-Dame de Bétharram near the city of Pau in southwestern France after five decades in the National Assembly.

Bayrou is a long -standing and prominent chosen official in this region, and some of his children attended school. He has been mayor of Pau since 2014 and has continued this office since he became prime minister five months ago. He has been a member of this area for about 20 years and National Education Minister from 1993 to 1997.

Over 200 symptoms have been officially submitted since February 2024 for alleged abuse at school, including dozens of alleged rapes of priests, said Alain Esquerre, the spokesman for a group of victims.

The scandal took a political turn when Bayrou announced to the National Assembly in February that it had never been informed about abuse in school until the past few years. A few days later, he said that in 1966 he was aware of a “blow” from a headmaster when he was Minister of Education and prompted him to commission a report.

Political opponents have accused him of having lied to parliament.

Bayrou has connections to school on a personal level because some of his six children attended school and his wife taught catechism there.

In 1998, Father Carricart, the former director of the school from 1987 to 1993, received preliminary rapes against children under the age of 18 and was taken into custody.

A judge who worked on this case told Parliament's investigation commission that at that time he had a meeting with Bayrou, in which the politician expressed concern about his son, who was a student at the school.

Carricart committed suicide in 2000 before a process could be held.

Bayrous's oldest daughter, Hélène Perlant, revealed last month that she belonged among children who had beaten a priest at the age of 14 when she had beaten a priest at the age of 14. Now 53 years old, Perlant said that she never spoke about it until the recent publication of a book in which she tells her story. “I was silent for 30 years,” she said.

Esquerre, the spokesman for the victims, himself a former student and victim of abuse, announced the investigation commission in March that “it was a time of terror, and nobody could imagine that we were in the hands of priests that were also the attackers.”

Esquerre showed an expression with a list of names and said: “I keep a list of all priests in the past 70 years, all aggressors, all of these priests. And so there are still a number of victims, which of course will only connect the significant number of complaints.”