Overview

• François Bayrou testified before a parliamentary committee investigating 200 complaints of physical and sexual abuse at Notre-Dame de Bétharram from 1957 to 2004.
• Bayrou insisted he only learned of the abuse through media reports during his tenure as education minister, despite claims from a judge and former teacher that they informed him in the 1990s.
• The inquiry gained momentum after Bayrou’s daughter publicly disclosed her own abuse at the school, though she stated her father was unaware of the incident at the time.
• Political pressure mounts as Bayrou faces allegations of perjury, declining approval ratings, and calls for his resignation from opposition parties like the Greens.
• The inquiry’s final report, expected in late June, will assess state and church oversight failures that allowed systemic abuse to persist for decades.