The trial of the victims of the abuse of French children, Le Scorn, was shocked by public indifference

It was supposed to be a specific and stimulating moment for French society.

Frankly, but it cannot be excused. Not distorted.

The coastal city of Va van, in southern Brittany, has carefully prepared a special place and a separate runway in the flow for this occasion.

Hundreds of journalists have been adopted for a process that would, certainly, dominate the headlines of newspaper in France throughout its three -month period and force the amazing audience to face a crime that is often transferred to the margin.

Warning: Some details of this story are annoying

Comparisons were quickly conducted with – associated expectations – the experience of comprehensive rape last year in southern France and the tremendous global interest he received.

Instead, the trial of the most well -known people of children in France, Joel Le Skorank – a retired surgeon in court to rape or sexual assault on almost 299 people, almost all of them – approaching the end of Wednesday amid widespread frustration.

“I am exhausted. I am angry. Now, I don’t have much hope. Society seems completely indifferent. It is a frightening thinking (rape) can happen again,” Monon Limoen, 36, told the BBC.

Mrs. Limoen and about 50 other victims, who were subjected to a clear lack of public interest in the trial, formed their own campaign to pressure the French authorities, accusing the government of ignoring a “historical” issue that revealed a real laboratory of institutional failures.

The group asked why a parliamentary committee had not been established, as in other prominent ill -treatment cases, and talked about being “invisible”, as if “the huge number of victims prevented us from confessing.”

Some of the victims, most of whom first chose to give an unidentified testimony, now decided to reveal their identities in public places – even as pictures are taken on the court’s steps – hoping to overcome France in paying more attention, and perhaps learning lessons about the qualification culture that helped the prestigious surgeon to incur them to strike the resources.

The crimes in which Le Scouarnec was tried between 1998 and 2014.

“It is not normal to have to show my face. (But) I hope that we will now change things. For this reason, we decided to rise, to make our voices heard,” said Ms. Limoen.

So, what is the error that happened?

Was horror very extreme, the topic is very dark or simply uncomfortable to think?

Why, when the entire world knows the name Dominic and Jessele Beckot, he has a trial with a greater number of victims – the victims of children who were abused under the noses of the French Medical Foundation – which was passed in what appears to be more than just a collective trembling?

Why does the world not know the name Joel Lu Skuark?

“The case of if you are not mutilated by many people. Perhaps because of the number of victims. We hear disappointment, and there is no wide mobilization, and this is unfortunate,” said Magel Nuri of the female NGOs. We are all (We are all).

Some observers were reflected in the absence in this case of one personality, such as Gisèle Pelicot, whose general courage caught the general imagination and enabled people to find some light in a dark story otherwise.

Others have reached more destructive conclusions.

“The issue is that this experience revolves around sexual assault on children.

There is default silence On this topic worldwide, but especially in France. “We simply do not want to admit it,” Meriam Gidj-Banoun told me, the lawyer who represents many victims of Lu Skorak.

In her closing arguments, Mrs. Guedj-Benayoun condemned what she described as France “organized and organized silence” regarding child abuse.

I talked about a patriarchal society in which men remained in respectable situations like medicine almost overcoming suspicions and pointed to “the silence of those who know, those who looked at the other direction, and those who could have – have caused the alert.”

Open corruption during the trial was amazing – too much for many for the stomach.

The court in Vans heard painful details how Le Skoark, 74, stumbled at a children’s general, and carefully details of each child in a series of black laptops, often getting out of his weak young patients while they were under anesthesia or recovered from surgery.

The court was also informed of the increasing retired surgeon, and what his lawyer described as “your descent into hell”, in the last decade before being arrested, in 2017, after the abuse of the six -year -old daughter of the neighbor.

In the end, alone in a dirty house, he diligently drinks and made him many relatives, Le Skornik spent a lot of his time watching violent images of rape online, and enjoying a group of dolls that resemble a child.

“I was emotionally connected … they did what I wanted,” Le Skorank told the court in a quiet monotony.

A few buildings from the court, in an air -conditioned civil hall, journalists watched the procedures for TV. In recent days, the seats began filling and covering the experiment have increased as they moved to a closure.

Many commentators noticed how the trial of Le Scouarnec, such as Pelicot, revealed the failures of the deep institutions that enabled the surgeon to continue to rape him for a long time after they were discovered and stopped.

Dominic Pelicot “Upskirting” was arrested in a supermarket in 2010 and a quarter of its DNA linked to an attempt to rape in 1999 – a fact that was not amazingly followed for a full decade.

At the trial of Le Scouarnec, a series of medical officials-some of them shyly, and others served self-who chose excessive rural healthcare system, for years, ignored the fact that the surgeon was reported by the FBI in 2004 after using a credit card to download videos from children on the computer on the computer.

“We are declared not to talk about such and such a person,” said one of the doctors who tried to highlight an alert.

“There is a shortage of surgeons, and those who appear like Christ,” the hospital director explained.

“I spoiled, I admit, like the entire hierarchy,” a different official recently approved.

Another relationship between Pelicot and Le Scouarnec cases are what they revealed about our understanding – or a lack of understanding – from shock.

Without warning or support, the police suddenly confronted the police by the police with video evidence of its anesthesia and rape.

Later, during the trial, some defense lawyers and other commentators sought to reduce their suffering by referring to the fact that it was unconscious during rape – as if the shock was only present, such as the wound, when the eye scar was visible to the naked eye.

In the Le Scouarnec case, it appears that the French police have searched for the search for many children who suffer from children in a similar way, calling people to conduct an unexplained interview, then inform them, from Azraq, that they are included in the books of the surgeon.

LE Scouarnec reactions varied widely. Some have chosen simply not to deal with the experience, or with childhood experience that had no memory.

For others, news of insulting them affected them deeply.

“I entered my head, he was destroying me. I became a different person – one of them did not realize,” said a victim, who was addressing Lu Skuark in court.

Another said: “I have no memories and I have already been damaged.”

“He turned me upside down,” a policeman admitted.

Then there is a different group of people who – who are not different from Gisèle Pelicot – have found that knowledge of ill -treatment was and revealed them, allowing them to understand the things they had not understood before themselves or their lives.

Some have linked the abuse of childhood with a general sense of misery, bad behavior, or failure in life.

For others, the links were much more specific, which helped explain a set of symptoms and mysterious behaviors, from fear of intimate relationship to frequent genital infections and eating disorders.

“With my friend, every time we have sex, I quit,” a woman revealed in court.

Another victim, Ameli said: “I had many subsequent effects of my operation. But no one was able to explain the reason for this illogical fear of hospitals.”

Some have described the same trial as a collective treatment session, linking victims to the joint shocks that they previously believed to be suffering from alone.

“This experiment is similar to the clinical laboratory, which includes 300 victims. I hope he will change France. In any case, it will change the perception of the victims of shock and painful memory,” said the lawyer, Mrs. Guedj-Benayoun.

Despite her concerns about the lack of public interest, Monon Limoen said that the trial helped the victims “rebuild ourselves, convert a page. We put our pain and experiences and leave it behind (in the courtroom). So, for me, it was liberated.”

After he confessed to his crimes, Le Scoranic will inevitably get a guilty ruling and will definitely remain in prison for the rest of his life.

Two of his victims took their lives years before the trial – a fact that he confessed to in court with the same summer apology that he gave to everyone.

Meanwhile, some activists still hope that the issue is a turning point in French society.

“Compared to Pelicot’s experience … we can see that we are not talking much about the Le Scouarnec case. We need to unite. We have to do that, otherwise nothing will happen, and the trial of Le Scouarne will not serve any purpose. I was also a victim as a child.

A more careful evaluation came from the lawyer, Guedj-Benayoun.

“Now, there is a very important confrontation between those who want to tighten sexual violence for children and those who want to cover up, and this confrontation takes place today in this trial. Who will win?” I wondered.

If you were affected by any of the issues raised in this story, information and support can be found in BBC Line.