Priests say 'responsible' for abuse at French school
A spokesman for priests who ran a French school where staff
have been accused of repeated abuse against boarders on Tuesday said they felt
"responsible" for what had happened and were seeking to make amends.
Allegations of repeated sexual and physical violence at the Catholic school have cast a shadow over the premiership of Francois Bayrou, who has been accused of knowing about some of the accusations as early as the 1990s as education minister and as a local official but not acting on them.
Bayrou's wife was a religious studies teacher at the school and several of his children were educated there.
A prosecutor on Monday however said two complaints filed with a special court over Bayrou's alleged inaction as education minister had been dropped as no offence appeared to have been committed.
Since last year, police have received more than 150 complaints of violence, sexual assault and rape at the Notre-Dame de Betharram school near the southwestern town of Pau, where Bayrou has been mayor since 2014.
The priests who for many years ran the school on Tuesday spoke up for the first time.
"We are still very affected why what has happened... by the suffering of these children who came here to be protected, educated," 75-year-old priest Laurent Bacho told AFP on behalf of the Congregation of Fathers of Betharram.
Bacho said he had met eight victims so far and described discovering the allegations against co-workers as "painful" for the congregation.
"It's not me personally but I am a member of this body. I am not guilty but I am responsible," he said.
Bacho said the congregation had so far spent 700,000 euros (more than $730,000) -- or 60 percent of its coffers -- to compensate 19 people recognised to have suffered sexual abuse by clergy at the school but whose cases had fallen past the statute of limitations.
A special commission set up in 2021 to investigate abuse within the Catholic church had recognised them as victims.
The congregation was now hoping to raise funds to compensate the victims of sexual abuse by non-religious staff by "selling some real estate", he said.
Bacho said the congregation was also funding an independent commission to examine the causes of the "mass abuse", speaking to victims and examining archives.
"Why didn't we see anything?" he said.
He however rejected any systemic reason for the abuse that lasted five decades, ascribing it instead to "deviant characters".
Bayrou, who was education minister between 1993 and 1997, has denied any wrong-doing and accused his detractors of stirring up a scandal to hurt him.
