French Surgeon Is on Trial Accused of Raping or Abusing 299 People, Mostly Child Patients

This courtroom sketch shows Joel Le Scouarnec, now 74, sitting in courtroom and accused of raping or abusing 299 people, at the Vannes courthouse, western France, on Feb. 24, 2025. Valentin Pasquier via AP

VANNES, France—A former surgeon went on trial in France on Monday for the alleged rape or sexual abuse of 299 victims, most of them children who were his patients, in what investigators and his own notebooks describe as a pattern of violence spanning over three decades.

“I committed odious acts,” Joël Le Scouarnec told the court in Vannes. “They were only children.”