Recent disclosures reveal that François Bayrou’s son attended Notre-Dame de Bétharram, a boarding school under investigation for allegations of abuse from 1950 to 2010. While Bayrou claims ignorance of sexual violence, judicial inquiries suggest he was aware of the issues for years. He faced scrutiny over his responses to the allegations, asserting he never received reports of sexual abuse despite acknowledging the long silence surrounding the victims’ experiences. Bayrou maintains he cannot be held accountable.
Recent Revelations About François Bayrou and Notre-Dame de Bétharram
On February 5, 2025, Mediapart disclosed that one of François Bayrou’s sons attended the Notre-Dame de Bétharram boarding school, situated near Pau. This revelation comes nearly a year after the Pau prosecutor’s office initiated an investigation into a wave of complaints alleging violence, sexual assaults, and rape that reportedly occurred between 1950 and 2010. The allegations specifically mention “physical violence, sexual, and pedocriminal assaults” carried out by “priests and supervisors, or even among the students themselves.”
In a follow-up report on February 12, 2025, Mediapart asserted that François Bayrou had been aware of these serious accusations for over two decades. According to the investigating judge, he raised concerns to Christian Mirande, the judge overseeing the case: “The information François Bayrou had about this case was what had appeared in the press. In the local microcosm, everyone was talking about it,” the judge confirmed. The Prime Minister’s wife was also noted to have taught catechism at the institution and attended the funeral of the accused after his tragic death.
François Bayrou’s Response to the Allegations
During the years 1998 to 2000, two incidents of rape involving minors were reported. The investigating judge recalled how François Bayrou was shocked at the thought that Father Carricart, the accused, could be guilty: “The facts were evident and established.” Despite this, the Prime Minister insisted to Le Parisien as early as March 2024 that he only heard rumors of physical violence: “It is true that the rumor, twenty-five years ago, suggested that there had been slaps at the boarding school. But of sexual risks, I had never heard of it.” This statement prompted the investigating judge to question the authenticity of Bayrou’s memory: “Has he forgotten our meeting or is he lying? Only he can say.”
On February 15, 2025, in response to the growing scrutiny regarding his silence, François Bayrou addressed the allegations during a visit to the Pau town hall where he listened to various testimonies. Speaking to the media, including BFMTV, he firmly stated that he had never been made aware of the sexual abuses reported by former students. “It’s always the same in cases of violence of this kind. You can live next to it. And here, there are thousands of families whose children were educated at Bétharram,” he remarked.
Further discussing his previous meeting with Christian Mirande, the Prime Minister noted, “When I meet the judge in question, the person being prosecuted had been released by a court decision. And then, he committed suicide. And then, the case was effectively extinguished. I did everything I had to do when I was a minister and when I was no longer.” Although he acknowledged the decades of silence imposed on the victims, François Bayrou refrained from accepting personal blame: “I assure you that it is not my fault. I did not know. I had never heard of it. My children were educated in this school,” he concluded.