Three questions on the report incriminating the founder of Emmaüs

Several women have testified before a firm of experts to denounce sexual assaults and sexual harassment targeting the clergyman who died in 2007. These facts span more than thirty years.

It only took one first testimony to free speech. In June 2023, a person reported to Emmaüs France a “sexual assault committed by Abbé Pierre on a woman”The structure created by the religious man, as well as the foundation that bears his name, then mandated an independent firm to shed light on other possible accusations. The report (in PDF) resulting from these months of investigation was published on Wednesday July 17 by Emmaüs International, Emmaüs France and the Abbé-Pierre Foundation.

The works from the Egaé firm, specializing in the prevention of violence, particularly sexist and sexual, and mandated by Emmaüs France in February, “enabled the collection of testimonies from seven women who reported behavior that could be considered sexual assault or sexual harassment committed by Abbé Pierre between the end of the 1970s and 2005”the three organizations detail in a press release. One of them “was a minor at the time of the first events”, they add. Franceinfo answers three questions on the report unveiled Thursday.

What is Abbé Pierre accused of?

Identified by a simple letter in order to guarantee their anonymity, the victims describe similar situations: inappropriate and non-consensual words and sometimes gestures, while they are alone with Abbé Pierre. At the end of the 1970s, while she is talking to him at the foot of a staircase, in “an airlock type place”one of them says: “He started groping my left breast.” “I was with him in his office (…) While we were talking about work, he put his hands on my chest”testifies another woman, an employee of Emmaüs International at the time, in the late 1980s. “I didn’t expect this gesture at all. I just ended the conversation more quickly and left,” she says. But soon after, “While talking, he did the same thing again. I told him that it bothered me a lot and that it shouldn’t happen again. It never happened again.”she continues.

Another colleague recounts a similar attack, much later, in 2005, two years before her death. The priest, in his nineties, “was in a wheelchair at the time.” “When I went to greet him, he touched both my breasts, she testifies. I remember hiding when he was around, I didn’t want to be near him at all.”

The testimony of A. mentions of “several touches on her chest when she was a minor in the family home where Abbé Pierre was regularly invited”, followed in the following years by inappropriate solicitations and a forced kiss. “When I was saying goodbye, he stuck his tongue into my mouth in a brutal and totally unexpected way,” she recalls. Some of the women cited in the report finally describe repeated solicitations, corresponding to sexual harassment.

Was the Emmaüs community aware of the reported facts?

Some of the testimonies mentioned in the report refer to known behavior within structures founded by Abbé Pierre. In 1992, one of the accusers informed the leaders of the time. “They told me: ‘We thought he had calmed down.’ They told me that I was not the only one among the secretaries of Emmaus International,” she explains.

A woman, who claims he touched her breast while she was working on a documentary about him in 1995, also recalls being received by community leaders. “They heard what we had to say. They were unmoved. I said to myself: ‘They are protecting something. It’s unhealthy.'”

“I heard very late that the secretaries were being warned to be careful of Abbé Pierre,” corroborates a witness heard by Egaé. Abbé Pierre “aging”, “had difficulty controlling his instincts” And “couldn’t help but touch women’s breasts”, had been informed. However, older behaviors are mentioned in the report. A person heard by the expert office echoed this “from a story of a scene in the 50s or 60s”where he would have “jumped up” on a woman.

Were these testimonies ignored by the movement’s leaders? “I have identified in almost all cases the difficulty in being believed when the person in question is valued, even adulated, for their commitment,” he emphasizes. the director of the Egaé firm, Caroline De Haas, quoted in The cross. Still in daily life, Isabelle Chartier-Siben, a doctor specializing in the treatment of sexual violence in the Catholic Church, agrees: “We still find this error among Christians: putting a person on a pedestal and not being able to see the truth, being incapable of sound judgment when revelations of abuse arise.”

What happens after these testimonies?

According to an internal source at Emmaüs quoted by AFP, no report to the courts has been made at this stage. While Abbé Pierre has been dead since 2007, and possible victims or witnesses have also died, “It was mainly about allowing the identified victims to be heard and allowing the Emmaüs movement to have sufficient information to decide what to do next,” explains Egaé in his summary document.

However, inviting those who wish to do so to give their testimony, Emmaüs assures that it has set up “a strictly confidential system for collecting testimonies, aimed at people who have been victims of or witnesses to unacceptable behavior on the part of Abbé Pierre”Managed by Egaé, it offers listening and support.

In its press release, Emmaüs welcomes “courage” people whose testimonies have helped to “to bring these realities to light.” “We believe them (…) These revelations are shaking up our structures”the movement says, for whom “These actions profoundly change the way we look at things” carried on Abbé Pierre, “known above all for his fight against poverty, misery and exclusion.”

“I’m sad, I’m angry, I’m mad at him for making these women suffer”asserted Christophe Robert, general delegate of the Abbé-Pierre Foundation, Wednesday evening on France 2, who speaks of a “Blast”. “We want to support with all our strength the victims we have identified and those, perhaps, who will come forward.”