The Congregation of the Fathers of Bétharram has acknowledged responsibility in widespread sexual abuse at a Catholic boarding school it oversees near the town of southwestern town of Pau, where Prime Minister François Bayrou has been mayor since 2014. Meanwhile a prosecutor has dismissed complaints alleging Bayrou failed to act on the abuse when he was education minister in the 1990s.
Since last year, police have received more than 150 complaints of violence, sexual assault and rape against former religious figures and lay personnel at the Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram boarding school. The alleged abuse occurred between the 1950s and 2010's.
