« Taloches in the face », « punches » … The former students of the Catholic college Saint-Pierre table 50 testimonies against their teachers-Liberation

They also accuse. In the wake of the Betharram case, in Hautes-Pyrénéesin Haute-Savoie or in Seine-Maritimehundreds of former students from Catholic schools in turn denounce the physical and sexual violence they have suffered from supervisors and teachers. This Wednesday, April 2, it is the turn of the former students of the Catholic College Saint-Pierre du Relecq-Kerhuon, next to Brest, to file a first corpus of 50 testimonies denouncing violence on minors, which would have been perpetrated essentially by teachers between 1962 and 1996.

At a press conference, the collective spokesperson described « The consequences of these physical violence, humiliations, psychological tortures », evoking « Depressions, various addictions, loss of opportunities, growth disturbances and even suicides ». Intended for the public prosecutor of Brest, the deposit of these testimonies aims to open a judicial information in order to make « All the light over a dark period during which thousands of innocent minors were brutalized. » This wave of testimonies could allow their authors to be interviewed by an investigator, if the public prosecutor seizes it. Several of them have reported Check What they wrote.

It was enough for a few seconds before the voice of Robert T. trembled when he suffered from what he suffered in Saint-Pierre college in the 1970s. « The teacher lg was talling the face, gave punches and kicks and it was necessary to fall on the ground, otherwise he continued », he describes. According to him, his written testimony can not return all the violence he ensures that he had cashed: slaps, knees, a rule that is broken on the skull, insults.

Robert T. says that this treatment has had devastating consequences for him: homelessness, alcoholism, drug addiction and hospitalization in psychiatry. At the end of the hospital, the former student tells the questions of doctors: “You are not bipolar or maniacodepressive, you are deeply sad. But sad what? «  For him, the link with his experience in Saint-Pierre is obvious. « My three years there have determined all my life. »

« We realized that there was a focus by the Ciase (The independent commission on sexual abuse in the Church, editor’s note) on sexual violence ”, explains Frédéric B., the founder of the former students collective, « But physical violence also had very serious consequences ». He too has delivered his written testimony, where he says he was forced to stay on his knees on a platform to receive slaps, or to have been locked up under the platform by Joël B., one of the only teachers to having expressed yourself in the press, with Check.

If sexual violence was not as systematic, according to testimonies, as in An establishment like Notre-Dame de Betharramthey appear in the stories of former students. One of the testimonies, delivered by Eric B., a pupil from 1972 to 1976, reports a sexual assault committed by the director of the establishment at the end of his third class. « He made me climb on a spiral staircase, then tightened me very hard, kissing my cheeks and caressing myself around my velvet pants », he says, before he succeeded in escaping while pretending to go to the toilet. Another former student, Joël Lagadec, also says he has undergone touching in the director’s office.

To physical and sexual violence would have added the psychological violence of constant verbal humiliations. « Each teacher insulted us: «  » « Cossards « ,“ lazy». We lived in constant terror and a permanent downfall of our children’s personality ”, Can we read in the testimony of Eric B. If he speaks today before justice, it is with a clear objective: “That we suffered is recognized as an offense. If the governments have long closed their eyes, it is time for the truth. « 

Monday, With the radio here Breizh IzelChristophe Geffard, the diocesan director of Catholic education in Finistère, had reacted to the multiple testimonies published in recent weeks in the press: “We were not aware of this type of act as violent, so abominable, and also numerous. It is obvious. The college had the reputation of being quite hard, but from there to read everything we read as testimonies, it is just unimaginable. ” While the local media indicated that a meeting had taken place last week between the bishopric, Catholic education and the victims, Christophe Geffard assured having fully heard the victims: “We recognize everything that could have happened, it is clear with all the testimonies that we have read. We are now trying to know how it could have happened, and why it lasted so much time. This is a page that we want to open.  » To this end, the archives of the bishopric, diocesan management and college will thus be open to the victims.