The Paris Prosecutor’s Office has requested three years in prison this Tuesday for David G., a childcare monitor accused of sexually assaulting nine children aged between three and five years at a school in Paris during extracurricular activities between August 2024 and April 2025. This is the first public trial since the abuse scandal in French schools broke out last February. Complaints have been accumulating, and 78 monitors have already been suspended in more than a hundred centers across the country, most of them in the French capital.
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For the accused, David G., 36 years old and with no prior record, three years are requested, but only one year of firm sentence, which he would serve with an electronic bracelet. He had been working since September 2024 in one of the childcare schools in central Paris that are at the epicenter of the scandal, as it has accumulated about twenty complaints. “The trust that existed in schools has been broken. Sexual assault on a minor is done behind closed doors, it is an invisible act,” said the prosecutor in her plea to justify her sentence request.
This is the first trial (another monitor was tried, but behind closed doors) in which the statements of parents and the accused have been heard before the judges. “Maybe I had inappropriate gestures, I should have kept more distance from the children. When the police interrogated me, I thought I made mistakes and maybe there are gestures that can be misinterpreted because people can say: ‘since he is kind to the children, he is a pedophile,’ but I have never sexually assaulted them,” the accused justified himself.
Some of his colleagues recount that he would take the minors on his knees or in his arms, touched them more than necessary during children’s games, or took photos of them in workshops. Childcare monitors are not teachers nor are they required to have specific training; rather, they supervise and entertain the children during the hours between classes. The accused has justified his “clumsy behavior” on that “poor training” they receive.
The children’s parents have told the judge what they saw in their children: behavioral changes in a few months, how they came home crying from school, and later, some already mentioned touching in their private parts by the accused. One of the complainants stated she was alerted when her son referred to the monitor as “dad” because “he was very affectionate” with him. Another mother said her daughter said the accused “loved her a lot because he caressed her and kissed her on the mouth.” Another recounted that hers spent the entire school day without urinating because she did not want to enter the school bathrooms. The accused stated he had supervised the restrooms “because children do a lot of silly things inside,” but denied ever being alone with any of them.
The scandal has escalated to the point that the mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire, presented a plan days ago to strengthen this much-questioned school accompaniment system, and this Wednesday the French government is presenting a bill to protect minors. Families accuse them of not having listened until now.
The Prosecutor’s Office has recalled the difficulty involved in such a process because it is the word of very young children against that of adults and their account is questioned: “It is not about putting an adult’s words in a child’s mouth,” the expert reports “have been complicated,” since children express themselves through drawings, for example. “At that age [between three and five], a child does not fabricate a judicial lie and does not coordinate a narrative. They express themselves with clumsy and spontaneous words, but they do not have to be perfect to be credible,” said Ismène Bérion, another of the lawyers.
Besides the minors, two colleagues accuse the accused of sexual harassment. One recounts inappropriate comments. Another accuses him of having touched her breast. “I do not touch women’s breasts unless they ask me or they are my friends. I do not behave like that with women,” replied the accused, claiming to have an “unconventional” sense of humor.
Inside the court, as it is a public trial, there were many families of minors enrolled in the same school or others in Paris where complaints have been made. Grouped under the collective #MeTooEcole, one of the associations they have created, they regret that they have not been heard until now. The sentence will be made public on July 7.
The phone number 016 assists victims of gender-based violence, their families, and their environment 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in 53 different languages. The number does not appear on the phone bill, but the call must be deleted from the device. Contact can also be made via email 016-online@igualdad.gob.es and by WhatsApp at number 600 000 016. Minors can contact the ANAR Foundation phone 900 20 20 10. In an emergency situation, you can call 112 or the National Police (091) and Civil Guard (062) phone numbers. And if you cannot call, you can use the ALERTCOPS app, from which an alert signal with geolocation is sent to the Police.
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