A FRENCH court on Wednesday gave the maximum 20-year jail term to a surgeon who admitted sexually abusing hundreds of patients, most of them children, during more than two decades.
The three-month trial of Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, has brought to light the extent of his crimes and the suffering of his victims but also raised questions of why more was not done sooner to stop him.
Le Scouarnec, one of the most prolific convicted sex predators in France’s history, was already in prison after being sentenced in 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces.
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The 20-year sentence for aggravated rape handed down by presiding judge Aude Buresi was the maximum that could be given on the charge of aggravated rape in France, where sentences are not added together on individual counts.
Le Scouarnec will not be able to ask for parole until two-thirds of the verdict is served.
“It was taken into account that the acts committed are of particular gravity due to the number of victims, their young age and the compulsive nature” of the crimes, said the verdict.
But the court rejected a rare demand from prosecutors that he should be held in a centre for treatment and supervision even after any release, citing his “desire to make amends” for what he had done.
Protestors hold signs bearing the names of the victims during a demonstration in support of victims at the courthouse on the sidelines of retired surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec’s trial in Vannes, northwestern France, on May 28, 2025. (Photo by Damien Meyer / AFP)
The prosecutor has said last week that in the United States — where the opposite is the case — Le Scouarnec could have been jailed for “2,000 years”.
In this trial, which began in February in Vannes in the western region of Brittany, Le Scouarnec has admitted sexually assaulting or raping 299 patients — 256 of them under 15 — in hospitals between 1989 and 2014, many while they were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations.
He was charged with 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults.
Survivors of the surgeon’s abuse staged a protest outside the court in Vannes, holding signs such as “Never again” and “I accuse you.”
