Overview

• Maxime Tessier, 34, one of two lawyers defending Joel Le Scouarnec, was found dead on July 9 in an apparent suicide and Rennes prosecutors say they have launched a formal investigation.
• During his February–March trial in Vannes, Le Scouarnec confessed to sexually assaulting or raping 298 patients between 1989 and 2014, many of them children under anesthesia.
• In May 2025, a French court handed Le Scouarnec a 20-year prison sentence for decades of abuse documented in his own diaries and in over 300,000 illicit images.
• Despite a 2005 conviction for child pornography and a 2020 sentence for abusing minors, Le Scouarnec continued practicing until his arrest in 2017, highlighting repeated institutional oversights.
• Child rights groups have seized on the latest developments to intensify demands for systemic reforms and stronger protections within France’s healthcare and justice systems.