Some 216 000 children were the victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests in France. This was according to a report released yesterday, based on an investigation of the scale of the issue in the country.
It is believed that the number of people abused could rise to over 300 000 if incidents involving lay priests are included.
The report was commissioned by the French Catholic Church in 2018, following similar scandals in other countries. It was based on interviews with alleged victims, as well as Church, police, and court archives.
It is not expected that many prosecutions will arise from the report, as under French law most of the alleged incidents happened too long ago for a successful prosecution.
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