Victims of pedocrime in the Church will receive up to 60,000 euros in compensation, franceinfo learned on Wednesday June 1, from the Independent National Authority for Recognition and Reparation (Inirr) which set this ceiling. Guest of franceinfo this Wednesday, François Devaux, former president of the association La Parole Libérée (dissolved in March 2021) explains that he “can understand that these amounts have been fixed”.
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On the other hand, he says he is shocked by the scales put in place by the national body: “A single rape is worth five points out of ten. When you know that a boy or a girl who has been raped generally has his life shot down, five points is not a lot. It hurts me and it even makes me angry . Five points is insulting”. The Inirr has constructed an evaluation scale to estimate the seriousness of the harm suffered by the victims, and then establish the amount of financial compensation. For this, it will take into account three criteria: the nature of the facts suffered, the consequences for the victim and the failures of the Church.
Regarding the assessment of the consequences for the victims, François Devaux recalls: “I had to justify during my criminal trial my interest in acting. This is a particularly unpleasant exposure.” He is at the origin of the complaint against the ex-priest Bernard Preynat. The latter was sentenced to five years in prison for sexual assaults committed on young scouts from the diocese of Lyon.
Finally, he believes that the third criterion, on how the Church reacted or not, “is really a joke”. The former president of the association La Parole Libérée does not see how the National Authority will succeed in “assess the reaction of the Church” while the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase) “speaks of 200,000 to 300,000 victims of the Church” and while “the former vice-president of the Council of State talks to us about systemic crimes, a term that does not even exist in the criminal code”. Then he wonders: “Are we going to appreciate the reaction of the Church which, we know, has covered up crimes all over the world?”
The former president of La Parole Libérée also denounces opacity. “I don’t know who decided, how these bodies work, who sets the scale, who will note the points that the victims are able to assert, if there are possible remedies”declares François Devaux He is surprised “Let’s get out of a Church institution which did everything on its own as it wanted and which did anything, in total opacity, with the creation of two bodies which probably operate in the same way”. Another independent commission, the Recognition and Reparation Commission (CRR) deals only with victims within congregations. It retained the same compensation ceiling as the Inirr.