"Challenge," "out of the ordinary," "constraints." These are the words that Ronan Le Clerc, secretary general of the Rennes Prosecutor's Office, used over and over again as he described the organization of France's largest-ever child sexual assault trial. Since Monday, February 24, and for the next four months, 74-year-old Joël Le Scouarnec will appear before the criminal court of Morbihan for the rape and sexual assault of 299 victims – aged 11 on average at the time of the assaults – that were committed in hospitals where the defendant worked as a surgeon between 1989 and 2014. "This trial is like no other, not only because of the number of victims involved but also because of the nature of the offenses. My primary concern was to set up an organizational structure that would serve the proceedings in a highly emotional context," explained Le Clerc.

For more than two years, Le Clerc has been preparing for the trial, which is to bring together hundreds of plaintiffs, 65 lawyers, some 470 journalists, etc., during the 75 days of hearings. He explained that he drew inspiration from the trials of the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris and the July 2016 Nice attack. The 90-person capacity of the courtroom at the Vannes courthouse soon proved insufficient. Located 300 meters away, a former law faculty was requisitioned to allow the proceedings to be broadcast in a spillover room. One amphitheater is reserved for the public, another for the press, and one for the plaintiffs, when they are not testifying on the stand.

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