Paris court hands monitor 18-month suspended sentence for assaulting preschooler in abuse scandal

A Paris court on Friday found a man guilty of sexually assaulting a kindergarten-age girl in his care, in the first such verdict after multiple allegations in the French capital.

The 25-year-old defendant, who denied any wrongdoing, was given a suspended 18-month jail sentence and was banned from working with children.

The judges said his accuser, now aged six, had made "consistent, precise statements compatible with her young age" when she accused him of assaulting her at a Paris leisure centre between October 2023 and July 2025.

She had told her parents after repeatedly refusing to go back to the centre and shown what he had done to her "on a doll when words failed her", they said.

The man is the first monitor employed by the city to be found guilty of abusing a child in his care since widespread allegations in recent months of non-teaching staff at Paris schools and leisure centres committing sexual abuse.

A court earlier this week found a 36-year-old guilty of harassing his female colleagues, but acquitted him of charges of sexual assault on nine preschoolers.

The presiding judge said the children's testimony may have been influenced by their parents, prompting outrage from activists.

That came after a 47-year-old was acquitted in June after being charged with sexual assault of three girls and sexual harassment of nine others when they were aged 10.

The court found it could not link the psychological stress of some of the children with what it called the monitor's "inappropriate behaviour".

Since the start of the year, Paris has suspended 132 aides, including 52 suspected of sexual abuse, a figure the city's mayor has said reflects a "systemic problem".

Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire – who says he was sexually abused during an after-school primary school swimming programme – has pledged to prevent any such abuse.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)