It starts with a summons to the gendarmerie, which is always a little worrying. But what could it be? A red light? A problem with the neighbors? On the phone, the officer is mysterious. After a bit of prodding, a few clues are distilled: The story is said to date back to childhood and to have taken place in a medical setting. "You could have been a victim," they say. And on that day, at the gendarmerie, life breaks in two.

All over France in the late 2010s, hundreds of people suddenly learned that they had been raped or sexually assaulted by Dr. Joël Le Scouarnec during a hospitalization 10, 20 or 30 years earlier. The vast majority of the alleged victims were minors at the time of the events. They were all identified thanks to a diary in which the surgeon recorded his sexual crimes, by name, date of birth and place. At the Morbihan criminal court in the Brittany city of Vannes, where Le Scouarnec has been on trial since February 24, the first four victims – out of a total of 299 – were heard. Listening to them, it's already clear what's in store for the rest of the hearings: The surgeon has admitted to the rapes he had previously denied, a turning point in the trial. "He's stripped himself of everything – the pride, the lies," said Maxime Tessier, one of his two lawyers.

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