Since last summer, Father Pierre has been targeted by several accusations of (33 in total). After having had the behavior of the one who was the emblem of the house of Emmaus until his death in 2007, the management of the establishment had “ordered a survey of the specialized EGAÉ firm, commissioned to collect the speech of the victims“Recalled theE Parisian January 14th.
Father Pierre got off from his pedestal, in order to no longer put this figure with the tarnished reputation forward. But This Tuesday, February 4, 2025, it was announced by AFP that no criminal investigation will be opened against him, the facts being prescribed.
The Conference of Bishops of France (CEF), which had asked the justice to study the possibility of an investigation, “regret the decision of the prosecution“, “while understanding it“She told AFP.Xprime its proximity to people victims and reiterates its determination to act so that all the possible truth is made on the acts committed by Father Pierre“.
Let us recall that these accusations of sexual assault but also of rapes have been revealed in three different reports published since July 2024 by the Egaé cabinet, mandated by the Emmaüs movement and the Abbé Pierre Foundation to shed light on the priest’s actions. The first brought in testimonies of harassment and sexual assault against the tireless defender of the poorest and poorly unobstructed, causing a shock wave.
At the publication of the last report, mid-January, Emmaüs had described its founder as “predator”. Among the new accusations were rape on a minor and facts concerning at least one member of the priest’s family. The facts denounced spread from the 1950s to the 2000s.
No investigation open in the actions of Father Pierre, why?
To come back with more details on the absence of investigation, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on January 24 by mail “that public action was extinguished by the death of the accused in 2007 with regard to personally, and prescribed in what could possibly have concerned non-denunciations of facts. “This was revealed by the prosecution to AFP this Tuesday.
“The aim of a judicial investigation is to seek whether criminally reprehensible facts can and must be judged. If it happens that the prosecution opens surveys on the denunciation of facts manifestly prescribed in the prejudice of minors, as a ministerial circular has also encouraged, it is in order to seek if other minors would have subsequently been victims of similar facts. If these more recent facts prove to be not prescribed, the prosecution can then initiate prosecution against the respondent for all the facts. This is obviously not the case when it died“, also said the prosecution.
The non-denunciation of offenses, a distinct crime, “Aims to ensure that, as long as the victim is unable to act by himself, people who know the facts prevent them from reproducing, and allow them to be judged.“, Develops the prosecution. But,”‘did not reveal the situation of victims for which the commission of a possible non-denunciation would still be subject to prosecution“, We learn.
For the Minister of Equality between Women and Men Aurore Bergé, “The disaster case abbot Pierre demonstrates once again how much the prescription prevents children who have become adults“To be entitled to”Access to justice“. “This is all the stake of the bill – that I have tabled and that I defend – which makes it possible to establish the civil imprescriptibility of violence and sexual assault committed on minors“, she adds on X.
A point now on the measures taken in order to no longer put forward the abbot Pierre: the Abbé Pierre Foundation, which the priest had created with relatives in 1987 to fight against poor housing, has officially changed the name January 25 to become the “Foundation for disadvantaged accommodation”. For its part, Emmaüs France, a heavyweight of the most precarious aid founded in 1949, definitively closed the place of memory dedicated to the priest, in Esteville (Seine-Maritime), recommended to its adherent structures to remove all the visuals The representative and withdrawn from his logo the mention to Father Pierre, his founder.
