New Paris mayor pledges to prevent sexual violence in schools
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Since the beginning of 2026, 78 staff at schools and after-school facilities have been suspended, including 31 on suspicion of sexual violence.
PHOTO: REUTERS
PARIS – The new mayor of the French capital on April 3 pledged to prevent sexual violence in schools and pre-schools, saying Paris had suspended more than 30 school monitors suspected of sexual abuse since January.
In Paris, school monitors recruited and trained by the city help look after children outside the classroom, including in the evening before their parents can pick them up.
The Paris authorities are under intense scrutiny from associations and parental groups following allegations that abusers slipped through the recruitment system to look after children, including nursery school pupils.
Claims of sexual abuse in schools were a central issue in the campaign leading up to the Paris mayoral election in March.
“Since the beginning of 2026, 78 staff members have been suspended, including 31 on suspicion of sexual violence,” Mr Emmanuel Gregoire told reporters, referring to schools and after-school facilities.
“These figures must lead us to a profound, thorough reappraisal,” he added.
“Everything has to be reviewed from the ground up with one objective: zero tolerance.”
He said he wanted to establish an independent commission to carry out a full examination of recruitment, reporting, and monitoring procedures.
“We will give it access to everything and its freedom of speech will be absolute,” he said.
Mr Gregoire himself has spoken publicly about being a victim of sexual abuse in an after-school swimming programme for several months when he was in primary school.
The mayor on April 3 promised to invest €20 million (S$29.7 million) in his action plan.
In 2025, 30 of these monitors were suspended in the capital, including 16 on suspicion of sexual abuse, according to the city hall.
Among those suspended in 2026 for physical or sexual violence, nine were working at the same Paris nursery school.
Parents of pupils have accused school management of failing to inform them about their suspicions.
“If there was a collective mistake, it was treating these cases as isolated incidents when, in fact, they reflect a systemic risk, and perhaps even a systemic code of silence,” Mr Gregoire told newspaper Le Monde earlier on April 3.
Kindergarten pupils were especially vulnerable, and almost all the alleged perpetrators were men, he said. AFP
