He drew up a table of the victims and their alleged attackers, listing the nature of the facts. He has classified all the testimonies collected since he launched the Facebook group “Formers of Bétharram middle and high school, victims of the institution” in October 2023. At 52 years old, Alain Esquerre, at the origin of the “Notre-Dame de Bétharram scandal”, is a methodical man, who does not want to leave anything to chance. “My biggest fear in this matter is having an imaginary story,” he explains to us, when we meet him this Wednesday in Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).
The “whistleblower” tells us that he is preparing to file twenty new complaints in this case in July, “the majority of which are for sexual touching, even if there is no rape this time.” They will be added to the 76 complaints, including 38 for sexual acts, filed since the beginning of the year at the Pau prosecutor’s office, which opened a preliminary investigation on February 1 for “violence, rape and aggravated sexual assault,” and entrusted to the Pau gendarmerie. “We will therefore have almost a hundred complaints…”
” The palette [des plaintes] widens »
The acts were largely committed between the 1980s and 2000s, against children most often under the age of 14, in this religious establishment located between Pau and Lourdes. But “the range is widening,” underlines Alain Esquerre, “since we now have facts dating back to 1960 and going up to 2011.” And for the first time, “we also have a girl who files a complaint for harassment”. The religious institute was reserved only for boys until the 1990s for middle school, and 2000 for high school.
Among the recent plaintiffs, Christophe Elgoyhen is a sort of ghost in this case. The former resident of Bétharram had in fact already been heard in the context of a first complaint of rape, in 1998, of one of his classmates against Father Carricart, then director of the establishment, who committed suicide two years later. “For my part, I recounted the facts that I had experienced from the general supervisor, and other facts that I had seen,” he explains to us. Until a month ago, I was convinced that the people cited in this case had been tried, before I learned by reading this Facebook group that this was not the case. »
“With his fly open, he asked me to come onto his lap.”
The general supervisor cited by Christophe Elgoyhen, nicknamed “Horse” by the students, has become a central figure in the Bétharram affair, since he is targeted “by 59 complaints to date”, says Alain Esquerre. “He called me into his office one Wednesday afternoon in 1989,” remembers Christophe Elgoyhen, who spent two years as an intern in the establishment, between CM1 and CM2. “I found him sitting with his fly unzipped. He asked me to come and sit on his lap. Out of fear, especially knowing the character who was violent, I complied. He then started to rub himself against me, then I told myself that it wasn’t possible, so I managed to extract myself and leave the office. »
The student then reported the scene, “only partly because I was ashamed,” to his mother, “who went to see Father Carricart, urging him to fire the general supervisor, in which case she would file a complaint.” It was at this time that he was transferred. “I think that there was already a big case against him, and that after these facts it was no longer tenable to keep him in place in the institution,” analyzes Christophe Elgoyhen today. But when we think that it was Father Carricart, who raped my comrade, that we told all this…”
“No mythomaniac in this group”
“Anything related to sexual assault was taboo at the time,” continues the former intern. It was a shame, no one talked about it. So this was not known. On the other hand, physical violence was omnipresent, in plain sight. » Christophe Elgoyhen remembers the “monumental meals received”, the blows on the fingers with a ruler “until the blood” and the famous punishments on the steps of the establishment, half naked in the middle of winter. “But at the time we found this normal, it is only today, in retrospect, that we measure the violence of this educational method, the effectiveness of which was moreover entirely relative, while the institute enjoyed a reputation for excellence. »
By joining the Facebook group of former students, Christophe Elgoyhen was “struck by the extent of the damage caused by all this violence”. “There is no mythomaniac in this group, we know when someone points out a room, a place, that what they are saying is the truth. A real notion of cohesion was created between us. I was lucky, even if I withdrew into myself for several years, but others were bruised. Today, it is essential to seek out those who are stuck there, and that we are therefore recognized as victims. »
“We were praised for the product, if I may say so.”
Bétharram’s famous reputation for excellence convinced many parents to send their children there at the time. Now considering himself cheated, Jean-Marc Veyron, who now lives in Val-de-Loire, decided to set up a parents’ collective a few days ago. Still not losing his temper, he recounts how his son Eric, now 50 years old, revealed to him “a little over two years ago, that he had been abused during his schooling there, between 1979 and 1982, by Father Carricart. “It took him a long time to denounce the facts. I was stunned, it knocked me out. This allowed me to understand his discomfort, but I blame myself terribly, I am ashamed of not having seen anything,” confides the father.
“We are in the process of gathering as much testimony as possible, which we will take to the public prosecutor,” he continues. In Bétharram, they had fantastic marketing at the time, highlighting that children had skiing, tennis… We were praised for the product, if I can say so, and I was very reassured. However, this education was very expensive, and we were deceived across the board, so I also want to attack the institution on this issue. Some parents are afraid of scandal, but we must go beyond that, for our children who have suffered abuse and who have been broken. »
The question of prescription
Even though the case is “sprawling,” insists Alain Esquerre, many of the facts date back several years and are time-barred. Some former students also assure that they have never experienced anything like this within the establishment, of which they have “good memories,” they told us, or wrote on the Facebook page.
Despite all these testimonies, is there a risk that the case, judicially speaking, will collapse? “Until we have heard from all the alleged victims, it is difficult to comment on the prescription or not facts, explained to us last February the public prosecutor of Pau, Rodolphe Jarry. It’s only at the end of the race [que l’on verra] whether things are characterized or not, prescribed or not. »
For his part, Alain Esquerre cannot accept that a judicial investigation should not be opened. “It’s a question of timing, we have to wait until all the victims, as well as the attackers [présumés] have been heard, he maintains. But for me the objective is in any case already achieved, because the scandal broke, and since the beginning of the year, victims of sexual abuse have contacted the CRR [Commission reconnaissance et réparation, missionnée par la Conférence des religieux et religieuses de France] to be recognized and compensated, which they would never have done without the revelation of the affair. »
Alain Esquerre even hopes that the Bétharram affair will go further. “We need legislative developments on the prescription of facts [en matière de crime sexuel commis sur un mineur, le délai de prescription est de trente ans à compter de l’âge de la majorité.] When a person is the subject of a very large number of complaints, which is the case for at least two supervisors out of the twenty people implicated in this case, this limitation should be lifted. »