The Paris prosecutor said Tuesday it cannot investigate allegations by several women who said they were sexually assaulted or harassed by Abbé Pierre, a nationally revered priest and humanitarian crusader who died in 2007.
The allegations against him first surfaced last yr and were detailed in an internal report by Abbé Pierre’s foundations. The French Catholic Church last month asked prosecutors to initiate an investigation, saying it desired to uncover the complete extent of the abuse, every other victims and any systemic cover-up.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said Tuesday that it looked into legal options, but that Abbé Pierre’s death makes it unimaginable to open an investigation into his past actions.
It also studied whether to research those that covered up or didn’t report the abuse allegations, but due to statute of limitations, no investigation is feasible.
Abbé Pierre was a French Catholic priest renowned for his dedication to aiding the poor and homeless, and was long seen because the conscience of France. In 1949, he founded the Emmaüs movement, a world organization focused on combating poverty and homelessness.
The allegations against him were a very important step in France’s broader reckoning with clerical abuse.
In July 2024, Emmaüs International and the Fondation Abbé Pierre released a report detailing accusations from seven women, including one who was a minor on the time, alleging sexual assault and harassment by Abbé Pierre between the late Nineteen Seventies and 2005. A dedicated channel for victims led to 17 additional accusations, with incidents reportedly occurring from the Nineteen Fifties to the 2000s across various countries, including France, the United States, Morocco and Switzerland.
