She spoke in a monotone before the Morbihan criminal court in Brittany on Monday, March 10. Sometimes, Alexandra, 47, paused to hold back the tremors rising in her throat as she described the violence inflicted on her in the 1980s by her uncle, Joël Le Scouarnec, the surgeon accused of raping and sexually assaulting 299 victims. From the witness stand, Alexandra insisted on highlighting all the times the doctor could have been "stopped." Like several victims and witnesses before her, Alexandra referred in particular to "2004."

In December of that year, Le Scouarnec was taken in for questioning for importing and possessing child pornography and then sentenced in 2005 to a four-month suspended prison sentence. How did Le Scouarnec manage to slip "through the cracks," as he wrote in his personal diaries? "Many people were blinded by Joël Le Scouarnec's social status. His trial before the criminal court should reveal all the institutional failings so they are not repeated today," insisted Frédéric Benoist, lawyer for the children's advocacy group La Voix de l'enfant ("The Voice of the Child"). It is important to delve back into the 2004 case to understand why so many plaintiffs refer to it as a "missed tipping point" in the Le Scouarnec affair.

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