In Nantes, around thirty former students of the Saint-Stanislas middle school, a private Catholic school, say they were victims of rape or sexual assault during their schooling between 1958 and 1995. Most of these people responded to a call for witnesses launched jointly at the end of August by the Church – the bishopric of Nantes – and the local Catholic education authority, a rare step.

A call for witnesses was launched on August 29 by the Bishop of Nantes and the diocesan director following the revelation of rapes, sexual assaults, and groping committed at the Saint-Stanislas school by five priests and a member of the educational staff. The events took place between 1958 and 1995. Today, all five priests are dead. Among the ten minor victims who were initially identified were nine men and one woman, all middle school students at the time.

In France, in most of the scandals that erupted after the Bétharram affair last February and its 200 complaints, it was former students who enabled their classmates to speak out. In Nantes, the initiative came directly from the Church and Catholic education.

This joint approach was welcomed by INIRR, the body that supports victims of violence in the Church. "Regardless of the period in question, the timeframe, the time that has passed," "the important thing now is that other potential victims can also speak out," emphasized the Bishop of Nantes, Laurent Percero, during the call for testimonies. Less than a week after this call, around thirty messages have already been sent to the diocese's reception and listening unit, currently composed of seven people.

80% of the incidents occurred at the Saint-Stanislas college

"We've been raising awareness among bishops for several months and encouraging them to issue appeals for testimony," Marie Derain de Vaucresson, president of the diocese's reception and listening unit, explained to Marie Casadebaig of RFI's France service. "At this level, which is an important one, we have a diocese and a bishop who is very specific in his appeal for testimony. He took the risk. Sometimes, this is done more discreetly, with a press release on a diocesan website or simply in the local press. But it doesn't have the resonance that this appeal for testimony did."

Of the thirty or so testimonies collected, 80% of the incidents occurred at the Saint-Stanislas college and the remaining 20% in other educational establishments, in Nantes and elsewhere.

The Nantes prosecutor's office has also opened an investigation following the suicide in 2024 of a forty-year-old man who had admitted to having been assaulted by a supervisor when he was a boarder at Saint-Stanislas college.