Joel Le Scouarnec, a 74-year-old former surgeon already imprisoned for child abuse, will stand trial on Monday in Vannes, Brittany.
Le Scouarnec is accused of raping or sexually assaulting 299 former patients, predominantly children, across multiple hospitals from 1989 to 2014.
The four-month trial follows his 2020 conviction for abusing four minors, including two nieces.
Of the victims, 256 were under 15, with ages ranging from one to 70; many allegedly attacked as they awoke from anaesthesia or during follow-up visits.
The case, unfolding publicly except for seven closed-door sessions for minor victims’ testimonies, may jolt France anew, coming shortly after Dominique Pelicot’s conviction for orchestrating his wife’s mass rape.
Le Scouarnec, the lone defendant, faces up to 20 years if convicted.
Despite a 2005 sentence for possessing child abuse images, he continued practising until retiring in 2017, when a six-year-old’s accusation and his diaries exposed decades of alleged crimes.
Lawyer Frederic Benoist of La Voix de l’Enfant called it a “collective failure,” prompting a separate probe into systemic lapses.
