Paris, France, Police Examine More Than 100 Allegations of Abuse of Children by School Monitors

Paris police are examining more than 100 allegations of mistreatment, physical violence and rape of children as young as three by school monitors, prosecutors have confirmed. The allegations concern lunch breaks, nap times and after-school activities. The investigations are not limited to one site. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said: “We have investigations under way in 84 preschools, about 20 primary schools and about 10 daycare centres.” Lawyers said the inquiries include the alleged rape of children aged three and four.

Parents’ groups said they had fought for years to have these allegations taken seriously. They said failures in the recruitment and checking of school monitors had allowed abuse to continue. School monitors supervise children during lunch, breaktime, naps and after-school activities, and they sometimes spend more time with children than teachers do. They are not employed directly by schools or the education ministry. Instead, they are recruited by city hall or local authorities, often without training or professional diplomas, and increasingly on a casual basis, with many paid by the hour. Nursery school is mandatory in France from age three, and monitors are a daily presence for children from three to 11.

Accusations reported by parents across France include children being screamed at, pushed, having their hair pulled and being denied food, as well as sexual assault and rape. These remain allegations under investigation. Lawyer Louis Cailliez, who represents two Paris families, filed police complaints in February over the alleged rapes of nursery schoolchildren in 2025. In one case, a three-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a school monitor at a school in western Paris. In another, a three-year-old boy was allegedly raped by the same monitor, who had been moved to a different school after complaints that he had been physically violent toward children.

Florian Lastelle, a lawyer for three Paris families who have filed police complaints, called the situation “a massive scandal.” He said: “The state school system is a source of pride in this country, but unfortunately in France today it’s not possible to say that the public service guarantees children’s safety.” Cailliez described the monitor sector as a “disaster” and “a national catastrophe,” and said the children were suffering physically and psychologically from the alleged abuse.

Paris city hall suspended 78 school monitors between January and April, 31 of them on suspicion of sexual abuse. Those suspensions reflect suspicion and are not findings of guilt. Protecting children who cannot defend themselves is the duty this situation presses on the officials responsible for them (Proverbs 31:8-9). The trial of a school monitor accused of sexually abusing five children aged three to five at a nursery school in the 11th arrondissement begins in Paris next week. A verdict is expected next month in a separate case involving a 47-year-old school monitor accused of sexually abusing nine 10-year-old girls in Paris.

Emmanuel Grégoire, Paris’s new Socialist mayor, has launched a €20m (£17.3m) plan to tackle what he called “major dysfunction” in the city’s school monitor system. He told Le Monde last month: “If there was a collective mistake, it was to treat these incidents as isolated when in fact they point to a systemic risk, and perhaps even a systemic code of silence.” Grégoire has also disclosed that he was sexually abused as a child by a school monitor. He has set up a citizens’ assembly to discuss the role of monitors, which will report back in June.

The parents’ collective SOS Périscolaire has spent the past five years gathering testimony and campaigning for justice, in a struggle to make parents’ voices heard. One of its founders, Anne, who did not want her full name published, said the abuse was nationwide. “This is clearly systemic and across the whole of France. There is dysfunction not just at a city level, but we’re beginning to say there is also dysfunction by the state.”

Source: Read the original report