France's most famous priest, Abbé Pierre, known for his activism in social issues, has been accused of sexual assault 17 years after his death. A report from the Egaé consultancy firm, commissioned by charities he founded − Emmaüs France, Emmaüs International and the Fondation Abbé Pierre − mentions violence committed against at least seven women from the late 1970s to 2005.

The eight-page document was written by Caroline De Haas, a French feminist activist and co-founder of Egaé. The report describes the "strong emotions" linked to this investigation and the dichotomy between the powerful aura of a man who dedicated his life to the poor and the acts described by his victims. "The dissonance between Abbé Pierre's image, his desire for justice and equality, and his behavior toward women creates an immense rift among those who admired him or admired his social activism," wrote De Haas.

"These revelations have shaken our organizations; these actions have profoundly changed the way we look at a man known above all for his fight against poverty, misery and exclusion," the charities said in reaction to the accusations. The French Bishops' Conference (CEF) expressed its "pain" and "shame."

According to the Christian weekly magazine La Vie, the investigation began after a woman read about the wide-ranging sexual abuse revealed by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) between 2019 and 2021. It brought up something from her past, and in 2023 she decided to share her story with one of the main people behind the CIASE investigation, Véronique Margron, a nun and religious authority who referred her to Emmaüs representatives.

This first victim, referred to as 'A' in the report, remembers Abbé Pierre as a friend of her parents. She says that he regularly touched her breasts when she was still a minor. In 1982, when she was 18, she went with him to Italy, where he repeatedly pestered her. "He would ask me to sit next to him in the car and would constantly hold my hand. One day, he came into our room without knocking." On returning from a trip to Charenton, he kissed her by force: "On the last evening, as I was saying goodbye to him, he suddenly and unexpectedly put his tongue in my mouth."

Six years later, according to A.'s account, Abbé Pierre asked to see her again in Mulhouse: "I had to go and meet him at the hotel. The porter said, 'He's waiting for you in his room.' He was lying on the bed, and asked me to come and lie down with him. I said, 'No, no, let's go.' He got up." In 2003, A. went with her father to meet the priest, to confront him with what she had gone through. She read him a text, which he then grabbed and destroyed in a shredder. At the end of the meeting, a witness interviewed for the report recalled that A.'s father had said: "I think the priest is going to be very upset, because I was very hard on him, you understand, he misbehaved with my daughter and I told him exactly where I stood."

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