WHEN Louise suspected a paedophile was preying on her three-year-old daughter at nursery, she immediately asked for more information about him.
The male suspect was an assistant helper – somebody who did not teach – and she assumed his background would be well known.
But Louise claims she was told he had been recruited “a few weeks ago following a short interview, and there were no checks”.
Louise – whose identity cannot be revealed for legal reasons – collapsed in tears, and immediately called the police.
The unidentified suspect has since died and was never charged.
But Louise is one of thousands of parents in France who fear paedophiles have infiltrated the country’s public education system to abuse children and rape boys and girls who are often too young to understand what is happening.
In France, nursery school is compulsory from the age of three, meaning the number of “at risk” children is estimated in the tens of thousands.
The crisis has reached the stage of criminal court trials – and 132 after-school assistants have been suspended in Paris since January 1, including 52 for suspected sexual violence, Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said this week.
Others have been suspended for allegations including physical violence.
Cops detained 16 people across three Paris schools in late May during a raid. At least 84 other cases of assistants accused of mistreating minors are under investigation in the city.
In Britain, anyone working with children undergoes a strict Disclosure and Barring Service check.
This detailed process uncovers previous criminal convictions or cautions.
But Jim Gamble, who formerly headed up the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, warned the UK is “not immune” to a similar crisis.
Gamble told The Sun: “Appropriate vetting is very important. People who have a deviant sexual interest in children or people who tend to abuse or mistreat children will do that when they have the opportunity.
“You don’t need to look too far back to see this kind of behaviour manifesting itself in UK schools.
“Over the last couple of years we have seen nursery schools where individuals have been caught and imprisoned for significant periods of time for offenses against toddlers that range from cruelty and sexual abuse to rape.
“The UK is further down the road to the likes of France with regards to our understanding to the nature of predatory behaviour – but we are not immune from this.”
In French schools, the approach to vetting is a less strict.
Pay for assistants is the equivalent of around £10 an hour – the basic minimum wage – and less than 20 per cent are given full-time permanent jobs.
This means that almost anybody – whatever their past – can enter schools unchallenged.
When a reporter working for RTL, the French radio station, applied for a job as an assistant using a false CV last November, she was reportedly hired in less than 10 minutes.
She says there were no checks, and she wasn’t asked to prove she held the qualifications she claimed.
A child protection detective based in Paris claimed: “The system is wide open for those belonging to paedophile networks to get jobs working with hundreds of vulnerable children.”
The main job of the assistants is to supervise all activities that take place outside the classroom.
But the source claimed: “They are often left alone with the kids while they are playing, napping, and even going to the toilet. This is when the rapes and other types of sexual assault happen.”
Last summer, hundreds of child pornography images were found on the computer of an “activity leader” assistant at the Reuilly elementary school in south-east Paris.
He was still working, despite being the subject of a complaint for sexual assault by a minor.
Other alleged offenders were reportedly moved to different schools, where they were said to have carried on abusing children.
The investigating authority in all cases so far is Paris City Hall.
The investigation is ongoing, and there haven’t been any criminal charges yet.
Juliette, another mother, said her two daughters, aged three and five, were read “frightening stories” before an assistant “comforted them” in a sexual manner.
She said: “It’s horrific – can you imagine asking your child to act out what happened, and she starts stroking her genitals.”
Juliette claimed children were ordered to “pull down their underpants” to expose themselves.
#MeTooSchool (#MeTooEcole) – one of the campaign groups calling for justice – claimed it had evidence of items such spoons being entered into children’s bottoms.
Juliette claims it took two years for authorities to start taking her claims seriously – despite at least 20 other parents complaining about the same man, she says.
Another three-year-old girl is reported to have told her mother how a man and a woman worked together to abuse her.
Her mother, Marie, claimed: “They put fingers in bottoms, and threatened to shoot their victims dead if if they spoke about their ordeals.”
No less than 16 complaints have been made against the same man and woman, while two more assistants were also accused of sexual violence at the same school earlier this year, Élisabeth Guthmann, founder of campaign group SOS Périscolaire (SOS Afterschool) said.
There have been no arrests or charges in this case yet.
Guthmann said: “Nothing happened for years. Then a television camera arrived and Paris City Hall moved into action within four days.”
Paris City Hall is leading the investigation into the allegations, which is ongoing.
SOS Périscolaire has registered some 600 abuse allegations nationwide – but they are still often accused of “being hysterical”, Élisabeth said.
The first criminal court case connected with the crisis took place in March, when a former classroom assistant referred to as Nicolas G., 46, appeared at the Paris Correctional Court.
He was accused of sexually harassing nine 10-year-old girls and assaulting three of them. He denied all allegations.
One child witness said: “He would tell horror stories that included scenes of rape. He then said he wanted to kiss us all over.”
The behaviour was first reported to officials back in 2021, but it’s claimed nothing was done initially.
A verdict in the behind-closed-door Nicolas G. trial will be handed down on June 16.
The trial of 36-year-old David G. – another school assistant – started last week at the same Paris court, after he was suspended from his job at the Alphonse-Baudin nursery school in April last year.
The words of a child whistleblower were finally taken seriously, and David was suspended from his job in April 2025 and taken into custody.
He faces nine counts of “sexual assault of a minor under 15”.
His alleged victims were aged three to five, and if convicted he faces 10 years in prison, according to France’s penal code.
Juliette, whose four-year-old daughter is involved in the case, said she had noticed a change in her child – including “sadness, wetting the bed and a refusal to eat or take a shower”, a court heard.
The girl also refused to go to after-school clubs, but would not say why.
Another parent telephoned Juliette to say their daughter had revealed incidents of sexual abuse and that her child might be involved.
Juliette said: “She didn’t tell us directly that this man had done such and such a thing.
“She made sexual gestures she’d never made before, to explain in her own way what had happened to her.”
The allegations were heard in court.
On the first day of his trial on Tuesday, David G. denied any wrongdoing.
He said: “Looking back now, I realise I should have been more careful around children, kept my distance, played with them less, and held them on my lap less often.”
He added: “I used to play a lot with the children, carrying them, pulling them along.
“Once a little girl fell and I wanted to catch her so she wouldn’t get hurt. But there was never any sexual gesture.”
But the investigation of more than 100 classroom assistants has raised fears among parents of widespread abuse.
Trials for three others accused of abuse will take place this summer.
Rebecca Royer, the Paris barrister representing six families in the case, said: “There is another issue at stake, which is to show French society that this type of case is not an isolated incident and that it occurs systematically in a huge number of schools.
“There is a scandal in Paris and the Paris region, but we know that this type of case also occurs in other cities.”
Emmanuel Grégoire, the Mayor of Paris, said has pledged the equivalent of £17.5million to improve the selection process of assistants, while admitting “systematic abuse”.
In the meantime, children and their parents will continue to live in fear of the predators potentially lurking in their schools.
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