Bétharram affair: François Bayrou targeted by a complaint for failure to report a crime and offence

The Pau prosecutor's office confirmed to BFMTV on Monday 24 February that it had received a complaint for failure to report a crime or offence against François Bayrou, in the context of the Bétharram affair , confirming information from the newspaper Sud-Ouest . This complaint was filed this Friday in the Landes, according to the prosecutor's office.

According to the local daily, the complainant - an alleged victim now aged 56 - hopes that his action will allow the statute of limitations to be extended.

A former general supervisor of Bétharram was charged with rape and placed in pre-trial detention on Friday in this case of violence against minors, where the statute of limitations benefited two other men placed in police custody.

The man behind the complaint against François Bayrou is also said to have witnessed a scene of violence while he was studying with the Prime Minister's eldest daughter in 1987-88, and that the latter "necessarily told (the scene, Editor's note) to her parents", reports Sud-Ouest.

For several days, witnesses have accused the head of government of having been aware of accusations of sexual violence within the Catholic establishment of Notre-Dame de Bétharram, where several of his children were educated in the 1990s. Allegations that he has denied on several occasions.

On Friday, François Bayrou denounced "the mechanics of the scandal that we are looking for" and the attacks targeting his "family" the day after Mediapart released a video. A former mathematics teacher from Bétharram reaffirmed that she had alerted, in the mid-1990s, the man who was then Minister of National Education between 1993 and 1997 and his wife, who taught catechism at the school.

For his part, Emmanuel Macron assured that François Bayrou had "his full confidence" on Saturday, on the sidelines of a visit to the Paris Agricultural Show. "The Prime Minister answered all the questions on this subject with great clarity," said the head of state.

In total, the victims' group has recorded more than 140 reports of violence over half a century, including nearly 70 relating to sexual offences.