The daughter of French Prime Minister François Bayrou has revealed she was assaulted at a school now at the centre of a widening abuse scandal — one her father is accused of ignoring during his tenure as France’s education minister.
Hélène Bayrou, 53, disclosed in her upcoming memoir Le Silence de Bétharram (“The Silence of Bétharram”) that she was physically assaulted in the 1980s at Notre-Dame de Bétharram, a private Catholic school in the Pyrenees. Her harrowing account adds a deeply personal dimension to the already politically explosive case, which has seen prosecutors investigate hundreds of allegations of abuse spanning nearly five decades.
Bayrou’s account was first made public through an interview with Paris Match, reportedly shocking her father, who learned about her book and testimony just days before its publication, according to Le Parisien. “He didn’t know that I was a victim and he didn’t know that I was going to testify as a victim,” she said. However, the report adds that he was aware she had witnessed violence at the school.
In the book, Hélène describes a traumatic incident during a summer camp where a priest, Father Lartiguet — who died in 2000 — allegedly dragged her by the hair and beat her. “One night, as we were unrolling our sleeping bags, Father Lartiguet grabbed me by the hair, dragged me along the ground for several metres, and punched and kicked me,” she recounts.
Notre-Dame de Bétharram is now the subject of a sweeping investigation, with French prosecutors examining over 200 complaints by former students who attended the institution between 1957 and 2004. Ninety of those complaints involve alleged sexual abuse. However, most cases are unlikely to result in charges due to the French statute of limitations, which blocks legal proceedings in many cases older than 20 years.
To date, only one former staff member has been charged — accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old in 2004 and raping a minor in the 1990s.
François Bayrou, 73, has consistently denied knowledge of the abuse, but that claim is increasingly under fire. Several media outlets, including Le Parisien and Paris Match, have reported testimonies from former teachers and school staff who say they warned both Bayrou and his wife, Élisabeth, who later taught religion at the school in the 1990s. Their warnings, they allege, were ignored.
Left-wing MPs have now called for Bayrou’s resignation, accusing him of misleading parliament and failing to act on credible reports of abuse. State prosecutors have opened an investigation into his alleged failure to report the crimes, and he is expected to testify under oath next month before a parliamentary committee probing violence in French schools.
The scandal also underscores a broader reckoning in France over sexual violence, especially within institutions long considered untouchable. A recent parliamentary report found that sexual abuse in the arts is “systemic, endemic and persistent.” Meanwhile, the MeToo movement has gained traction in France, catalysed by shocking cases like that of Dominique Pelicot — convicted in December for orchestrating the serial rape of his wife — and the ongoing high-profile trial of actor Gérard Depardieu for alleged sexual assault, with a verdict due in May.
While Bayrou’s daughter does not directly implicate him in wrongdoing, her revelations have intensified public scrutiny over whether political and institutional elites have long turned a blind eye to abuse within schools, churches, and cultural organizations.
Alain Esquerre, spokesperson for the victims’ association tied to the Bétharram school, said the flood of testimonies highlights a “culture of silence and impunity” that must now be dismantled.
