Families and lawyers of young children suspected victims of rape in schools made their suffering visible yesterday. They requested the opening of judicial proceedings and an administrative investigation to assess facts dating back to the start of the 2025 school year. The Grasse prosecutor’s office appointed a judge to handle the case immediately.
Parents, lawyers and associations gathered the local media yesterday morning to denounce the dismissal without prosecution of complaints for rape and sexual assault against several children attending the same class at Pasteur nursery school in Saint-Laurent-du-Var. This public statement was intended to try to accelerate the opening of judicial proceedings. The gamble paid off: the Grasse prosecutor Eric Camous, who had closed the case at the end of 2025, ultimately appointed an investigating judge that afternoon.
Four complaints had been filed between October and November 2025 by parents following suspected rape and sexual assault of their children in middle kindergarten. Two initial complaints concerning two four-year-old boys were filed a month after the start of the 2025 school year, in early October. Two other complaints followed in early November, this time concerning two little girls of the same age.
“Summary justice”
After a brief investigation phase (less than three weeks for each complaint, editor’s note) — based on methods deemed poorly suited by families and lawyers for gathering testimony from young children — the four complaints had been dismissed without prosecution by the Grasse prosecutor Eric Camous in 2025. Other children in the teacher’s class as well as the previous year’s class present similar accounts and “symptoms” according to the mothers, without having filed complaints.
The parents of the supposed victims and their lawyers yesterday denounced “summary justice” and expressed their frustration with the responses from the justice system and the Education ministry. They asserted their right to obtain the appointment of an investigating judge to handle the case as quickly as possible. “We are calling for remedying what was handled poorly,” declared lawyer Vincent Brengarth, representing one family. In accordance with the code of criminal procedure, a judicial investigation was therefore opened yesterday afternoon by the Grasse prosecutor’s office.
The teacher in question, who had been in position for over ten years without any prior reports, has strongly denied the allegations. His lawyer, lawyer Audrey Vezzana, told Ici Côte d’Azur: “my client has always proclaimed his innocence, the investigating authorities did their job, no one took the children’s statements lightly, but he was cleared. Today people are using this tragedy of the Lyhanna case to call the procedure into question.”
“We will see this through to the end”
“How can you live after that?” asks Laura, mother of a four-year-old boy who filed a complaint after her son revealed that “only the teacher can put fingers in butts.” After being forced to change her child’s school to avoid any contact with the accused teacher, the families encountered silence from institutions. Suspended for a few weeks after the initial complaints, the teacher had returned to work after the All Saints’ Day holiday break despite strong mobilization by parents. All four students involved had to change schools mid-year.
Facing a classroom that was emptying out, the teacher eventually stopped working at the end of 2025. He was reportedly “on sick leave” before “changing schools”, then being “transferred (…) continuing to work, without being in contact with children” according to the mother. Without an investigation opened, the teacher could have returned to his tenured position at the next school year, fueling parents’ fears that the suspected facts could happen again.
“We will see this through to the end, we will pursue every possible legal remedy (…) for our children, but for yours too. We will not give up,” declares Mélina, mother of a girl who also filed a complaint. The mothers also denounce the conditions under which the testimonies of the young children were collected: “direct questions without building rapport or using play,” “a five-minute interview, sitting on a chair at an adult desk.”
Abnormally long delays
Two complaints with civil party status were filed respectively in October 2025 and then in June 2026. Both had received no response until now. Faced with the inaction of the justice system, lawyer Nathalie Vincent, representing a family, speaks of “botched justice”: “the justice system is certainly overloaded, but here the delay is not typical, it is too long.” Eight months have passed since the initial complaints, leaving families in discomfort as they await answers, coupled with a painful sense of helplessness.
Lawyer Vincent Brengarth emphasizes that this abnormally long delay increases the risk of “loss of evidence”; young children’s memories fading quickly at that age, and therefore affecting their testimony.
The FCPE 06 calls for the opening of an administrative investigation
The academic authority had responded in April 2026 to a letter from a lawyer sent several months earlier that “no administrative investigation would be opened” for two reasons: “the complaints from October and November 2025 were dismissed without prosecution, and ‘in-depth investigations’ had already been conducted” reports lawyer Vincent. The only response provided by the Education ministry had been to place police officers in front of the school following the initial complaints.
Khadidja El Ouahabi, president of the FCPE (Federation of parents’ councils) for the department, is calling for the opening of an administrative investigation by the Nice Academy within the school and into the teacher in question. She emphasizes that conducting an investigation means “also providing answers to families (…) the school must protect, it stands in for parents.”
A lack of resources and staff
The facts and their judicial handling are reminiscent of the recent Lyhanna case, which brought to light many dysfunctions in the legal and judicial system in France.
In 2026, the Justice ministry operates with a constrained budget despite a slight increase: 10.7 billion allocated (for justice and prisons, editor’s note), and a considerable decrease in the number of judges at the same time cases are accumulating.
The child protection association Les Petits invincibles, present yesterday, highlighted the scale of this lack of resources and called for “collective awareness.” 160,000 children are victims of abuse each year in France. A third rally against child violence will also be held Monday, June 29 at 7 p.m. in front of the Nice Court of Justice.
NicePremium is a free, independent local news outlet.
Help us keep going by supporting our work from €5 per month.
