The first conviction in the brewing Paris after-school child sexual abuse scandal was handed down this week, with a former childminder being found guilty of sexually assaulting students as young as five years old.

This week, the Paris criminal court found that 38-year-old “Mickaël M.” has sexually assaulted nine children at the Vigée Le Brun school in the 15th district of Paris between September 2022 and January 2024, Le Monde reported.

The abuse was first raised when the mother of a six-year-old girl at the school told her that Mickaël had grabbed her “buttocks” on two occasions. An investigation soon identified eight other children who said that he had touched their genitals or buttocks on the school playground or during school outings.

While he admitted to the facts during a trial last month, he claimed not to remember committing any offences.

According to Le Figaro, he told the court: “I can’t explain it… if the kids said it, it must have happened. I don’t question their word.”

Although he claimed to have never been sexually attracted to children, prosecutors undermined this claim by noting that he had used his phone to search for the term “pedophile”. He was also said to have been active on an online forum which discusses child pornography.

He later admitted to the court that there was “a risk of doing worse” had he not been arrested.

He was given a sentence of five years in prison; however, it is likely that he will serve only one year under house arrest with an electronic ankle monitor, followed by a further ten years on probation and monitoring. He will also be barred from ever working professionally with children again and from any government position.

The case comes amid a broader scandal involving after-school programmes across the French capital, with the Paris prosecutor’s office currently investigating over 200 potential cases. Since the start of the year, 132 people have been suspended from their roles by the city, including 52 on suspicion of sexual violence.

The potential widespread sexual abuse of children in the care of the state has put a cloud over the governing Socialist Party, including former Mayor Anne Hidalgo and her successor Emmanuel Grégoire, who was serving as Hidalgo’s deputy during the time in which most claims of abuse were made.

On Tuesday, Hidalgo appeared before a Senate hearing, where she acknowledged a “collective failure” to protect children.

Former Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo appeared before a French Senate hearing on September 15 and acknowledged what she called a “collective failure” by institutions to protect children. However, this did little to quell the anger of parents, who claim that their concerns were consistently ignored by City Hall.

Responding to Hidalgo’s testimony, parents group SOS Periscolaire said per Reuters: “We are unfortunately not surprised by these answers, which always point to the failures and responsibilities of others, but ⁠never her ​own.”

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