Paris police are investigating more than 100 allegations of mistreatment, physical violence and sexual assault by school monitors at dozens of state nursery and primary schools. The allegations include rape of children as young as three, prosecutors confirmed.
Paris's top prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, said investigations were under way in 84 preschools, about 20 primary schools and about 10 daycare centres. Lawyers said the cases included alleged rape of children aged three and four.
Parents' groups said they had fought for years for their complaints to be taken seriously, blaming failures in recruitment and vetting of monitors. School monitors are hired by city halls or local authorities, often without training, and are not employed by the education ministry.
Lawyer Louis Cailliez, representing two families, filed complaints in February over alleged rapes of nursery schoolchildren. In one case, a three-year-old girl was allegedly raped; in another, a three-year-old boy was allegedly raped by the same monitor, who had been moved after complaints of physical violence.
Emmanuel Grégoire, the Socialist mayor of Paris, has launched a €20m plan to address what he called 'major dysfunction' in the school monitor system. Between January and April, Paris city hall suspended 78 monitors, including 31 suspected of sexual abuse.
The trial of a monitor accused of sexually abusing five children aged three to five begins next week in Paris. A verdict is expected next month in another case involving a monitor accused of abusing nine 10-year-old girls.
