He admitted that he had been a victim of sexual violence several decades ago. A former student of the Catholic institution Ozanam in Limoges (Haute-Vienne) filed an appeal against the State for “serious violations”, the city’s administrative court said on Tuesday.
According to the newspaper Le Populaire du Center, which disclosed the information, the applicant was educated between 1967 and 1975 at the place where members of the congregation accused of physical and sexual violence complained at Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, leading.
This man, a former member of the Ozanam victims group, criticized the State in particular for its “lack of control” over the two Catholic institutions at the time of the alleged acts, which have now been determined.
After the first failure at the criminal level, due to time constraints, the former student relied on administrative justice to acknowledge the State’s “mistakes” during that period. “I am not asking for any financial compensation. I just want a bill to be drafted to extend the limitation period,” he explained to Le Populaire du Center.
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The investigation was closed with no further action
In early July, an investigation targeting the Bétharram congregation for violence, rape and sexual assault of minors committed at its Limoges establishment in the 1960s and 1970s was terminated by the Limoges public prosecutor’s office, due to the deaths of the priests involved.
Four former residents of the premises, who are members of the victims’ group, have expanded the grounds of their complaint to “crimes against humanity” to avoid the risk of a statute of limitations.
However, this offense “in its current wording” has only appeared in the Criminal Code since 1994 and the previous wording only applied to crimes committed during the Second World War, explained Limoges prosecutor Émilie Abrantes.
In the case of sexual violence at Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram, which spanned half a century, former teenage victims, most of whom were elderly, were faced with a limitation period, the starting point of which started with the majority of the complainants and ended up to 30 years in rape cases.
More than 200 complaints have been filed in Pau but, at this stage, only two complaints do not fall within the statutory limits, although they have grown gradually since the 1990s.
Ozanam was subjected to “control” from the ministry
Ozanam Catholic Institution in Limoges “is subject to a field inspection in May 2025”, the Ministry of National Education stated this Tuesday evening.
As part of a plan aimed at strengthening control of private companies under contracts, “more than 850” have been carried out in such companies and “40%” of the private sector will be controlled “by 2027, including 1,000 by the end of 2025”, the ministry argued.
He also announced he “wants to hire 30 inspectors and several dozen administrative staff by the start of the 2026 school year,” as part of an overhaul of the 2026 Finance Bill.
