Victims of the Church: biographies

Alain

Alain* is 68 years old. He is a psychotherapist. He was sexually abused by his village priest between the ages of 8 and 13 when he was a choirboy. He has three children from his first marriage, and is remarried. He did not wish to go through the commissions. “It didn’t have too much of an impact on my sex life, because I simply wasn’t attracted to men. In fact, for a long time, it made me against male homosexuality. What I was aware of, however, was manipulation. Anything to do with the clergy was suspect. So I developed a form of paranoia. When you are abused, you are left to fight for yourself. If you fight on the outside, everything risks becoming problematic. That’s been the case for most of my life. In my relationship with authority, I was always on the lookout for abuse of trust and moral authority.”

Claudine

Claudine* is 75 years old. She is a retired nurse. She was raped by a Catholic chaplain at the State secondary school in Enghien-les-Bains (Val-d’Oise) between the ages of 17 and 21. As soon as it was set up, she applied to the Commission for Recognition and Reparation (CRR), which awarded her compensation. She is remarried and has two daughters. “I went abroad as soon as I could, and lived in different countries for 15 years. It was like giving myself the power to reinvent my own life. I had a systematic lack of confidence. I put obstacles in my way all my life. I had opportunities - dancing in ballets, teaching Spanish - which I never took up. I became a freelance nurse, and now I’m analysing the facts. I buried everything until 2019, when I told my second husband and my children about the rape.”

Danièle

Danièle* is 52. She works in the medical sector and has been unemployed since 2020 due to illness. She was raped by a priest for several years when she was young and suffered from amnesia for a long time, but her memory of the events came back to her when she was diagnosed with a serious illness. She received compensation from the CRR and is awaiting the canonical trial of the priest within the Church. “Following this, I suffered traumatic amnesia, which began during the assaults. I totally forgot what happened in my mind, but not in my body. I’ve had a lot of health, relationship and emotional problems. I refuse to be touched. I thought it was because of me, but three years ago when my memory came back, I realized that it wasn’t. I couldn’t get married, although I wanted to have a family and children, and I couldn’t understand why. It’s a huge wound to have been unable to do that. I feel alone today. I feel like I’m living apart from the world while still being in it. Today I can’t go and see a male doctor, and as for women, it’s impossible to undress. I show a piece of paper to the emergency room so that I don’t have to repeat things. I’ve had endometrial cancer, and the treatment is very complicated. I have deep wounds that are invisible to everyone else, but very real to me.”

François Devaux

François Devaux is 46. He used to be a building contractor and is now a seasonal self-employed contractor (building work and nautical activities). He was a victim of paedophile abuse by Bernard Preynat, the scout chaplain at Sainte-Foy-Lès-Lyon, when he was 11. He is married and has three daughters. He stopped his appeal to the INIRR in the middle of the process. “The impact of this attack was fundamental. It’s a major part of my life. Everything I am is more or less linked to it. It has changed my behaviour and my attitude, and required me to adapt. And above all, I have a vital need for truth. It is this that attracts me to philosophy, guides my children’s education, shapes my way of working and the meaning of my existence.”

Gilbert

Gilbert* is 70 years old. He is a retired post office branch manager. Raped by a priest at the age of 12 at the Sainte-Marie boarding school in Chagny run by the Marist brothers, he received compensation from the CRR. He has married three times and has three children. “It left a deep mark on my life. At boarding school after the fourth year I didn’t do anything. I was rebellious, damaged. They tried to make me repeat a year, but I told my parents to get me out of there. I tried a technical college in accountancy, and then I stopped. My future had already been massacred. I don’t think I am stupid, and I’ve proved it in my professional career. A few days before my 17th birthday, I started working. It’s been three and a half years since I became aware of all the damage in my life. I’ve been married three times. This rape has ruined my emotional life.”

Michel

Michel* is a 73-year-old retired psychotherapist. He was abused by a nun in a boarding school when he was five years old. He is married with four children. He received compensation from the CRR. “From adolescence onwards, I was troubled by extremely violent dreams and fantasies about women, whereas I had always been a gentle and respectful man in my everyday life. This was the starting point for my therapy, which lasted for years. I was passionate about this work, and later made it my profession.”

Nanou Couturier

Nanou Couturier is 69. She was raped from the age of 18 months until she was 14 by three priests from the Marist Fathers’ community. She is not married and has two children. She worked in factories making washing machines and then security equipment for 25 years, at which time she undertook a vocational training course in secretarial accounting. She had dreamed of being a vet, but ended her career in an accountancy firm. “The abuse and rapes I suffered under my grandmother’s roof taught me very quickly how to cope on my own, and when I was young I used to steal food. I was an excellent pupil, but my behaviour was always problematic. I’ve been scared all my life. I still find it hard to be alone with a man. I am excessively sensitive and raw, because my first 13 years were nothing but destruction from the inside.”

Véronique Garnier

Véronique Garnier is 64 years old. She was a nurse, now retired. She was abused by two priests in the diocese of Nancy between the ages of 10 and 15. She is married and has eight children. She received compensation from the INIRR in May 2023. “It has affected my whole life in every way. These assaults have made a mess of my life. For years I’ve been spending my time putting my relationships, emotions and spirituality in order, and little by little I’m making progress, but it’s a long and painful process.”

Yolande du Fayet de la Tour

Yolande du Fayet de la Tour is 52. She was raped at the age of five by a priest from the diocese of Versailles and then in the family home between the ages of 11 and 16. She is divorced and has three children. She received compensation from the INIRR in March 2025. “I lost my memory and had total traumatic amnesia until recently, for a large part of the period of the assault. The reparation process has given me the time and space to find explanations for a lot of things I experienced between the ages of 11 and 16. For example, I understood why I couldn’t remember my lessons. I realized that I was in depression during that period.”

* Pseudonyms