FILE PHOTO: Files are kept inside the court on the day of the trial of ex-surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec, accused of the rape, aggravated rape and sexual assault against hundreds of children over several decades, at the courthouse in Vannes, Brittany, France, February 24, 2025. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo
VANNES, France (Reuters) - When police told Louis-Marie, 35, that they believed he had been sexually abused two decades earlier by a surgeon who treated him for appendicitis, he thought it was a prank. It wasn't.
Louis-Marie is one of 299 people, most of them children at the time, who were allegedly raped or sexually assaulted by retired surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec, who is now facing what are widely considered the most serious charges of mass child abuse to go to trial in France.
