The media attention given to the drama of the poisoned child in a crèche of the People&Baby structure highlights other cases that are taking place in the group’s establishments. In effect, franceinfo reveals a case of suspected abuse in a crèche, this time in Yvelines in Ile-de-France. A mother filed a complaint on July 6, 2022 at the Mantes-la-Jolie police station for “violence aggravated by two circumstances followed by incapacity not exceeding eight days” and for “false: fraudulent alteration of the truth in a writing”. “The departmental security of Yvelines is seized of the investigation, according to the prosecutor of Versailles” who will hear all the protagonists of the file, specifies the website of the media.
This is the story of Ignestra Traverso, a 39-year-old mother, and her 2-year-old and 4-month-old son, Ilyan. She says she saw with her own eyes an employee of the crèche where her child is enrolled, shaking him violently. Acts that are written on the medical certificate drawn up by the family doctor that franceinfo was able to consult. The investigators have since asked the mother of the family to consult the medico-judicial units (UMJ) of Versailles to see possible sequelae on the little one. Before the case was brought before the police and the courts, the mother of the alleged victim explains that she contacted the management of the People&Baby group to “find common ground” and explain. Several attempts which have remained in vain, she said. Which prompted her to file a complaint.
The situation became problematic at the beginning of June 2022.”It’s been more than a week since he arrived in front of the crib that he was screaming, that he didn’t want to go into the cribshe says. He always told me ‘mean lady, mean lady’.“Following the advice of her pediatrician, she comes to pick him up earlier, without notifying the structure, in order to be able to observe the functioning of the establishment. On June 10, she therefore arrives an hour earlier. “When I go down the stairs to go around, I hear ‘Ilyan you stop!‘ in a very nasty way and screaming. So there I rush and there I see another professional with both hands on my son’s shoulders shaking him and my son in tears, paralyzed.“
Private conflict or whistleblowing?
The tone rises between the mother, the crèche employee and the director. The municipal police of Les Mureaux intervene. Two versions are opposed: according to the mother of the little one, the police advise him to file a complaint. According to members of People&Baby, his aggressive behavior in the presence of children for the second time caused them to ask the police to calm the situation.
Since then, the child has been removed from the crèche which traumatized him – he would have screamed as he passed in front of his ex-crèche, even closed – he is now looked after by his grandmother. “The mother also filed a complaint for ‘false: fraudulent alteration of the truth in a writing’. She suspects the director of the nursery of having signed a new contract in her place, after the end of the one signed between December and the end of March“, adds franceinfo. According to her, a report to the Maternal and Child Protection (PMI) for all the malfunctions of the crèche and in particular the understaffing and turnover constant. Contacted by franceinfo, PMI has not confirmed this report. The People&Baby group did not react, despite reminders from the media.
After the tragedy of the small child to whom an employee of a People&Baby establishment in Lyon had made Destop drink, another mother had spoken to denounce abuse in a nursery, supporting photos. Still working in a People&Baby establishment, a childcare worker in Seine-Maritime has also decided to speak out, to denounce and also not to condone what is happening in her workplace. If justice is doing its job, acts of negligence are put on the table, opening the debate on the management of early childhood in France, like the problems in the treatment of elderly people in nursing homes after the Orpéa scandal. The Secretary of State for Children, Charlotte Caubelhad asked the departments to intensify controls, particularly for People&Baby crèches.