Crimes enquêtes et investigations · Engle

Podcast / De sang froid - Rencontre avec Rachel Le Nan, qui a été abusé sexuellement par l'abbé Pierre

·49 min·4 clips

At eight years old, Rachel Lenant describes Abbé Pierre biting her and forcing his tongue down her throat.

1. This episode of Crimes Enquêtes et Investigations, produced by Le Nouveau Détective magazine and hosted by Nassim, presents a long-form interview with Rachel Le Nan about her abuse by Abbé Pierre and her stepfather René, and her 50-year path to being believed. 2. Host Nassim interviews Rachel Le Nan, author of 'Et pourtant tout le monde savait' (And Yet Everyone Knew), about sexual assaults she experienced beginning in 1974 at age 8. 3. The episode traces how Abbé Pierre's public persona as a charitable icon created a system of institutional protection that enabled him and his associates to abuse children for decades without accountability. 4. In spring 1974, Rachel's stepfather René — a companion of Emmaüs and a friend of Abbé Pierre — brought the 8-year-old to Abbé Pierre's office, where she was assaulted the moment René briefly left the room. 5. Rachel describes using the term 'autobiographical memory' to explain her ability to recall sensory details from the assault, including the cross above Abbé Pierre's desk that she fixed her gaze on while being assaulted. 6. René, Rachel's stepfather, was himself a convicted pedocriminal who had just been released from prison after five years for assaults on three young girls; Abbé Pierre was aware of his record. 7. Rachel explains that in 1975 a judge granted René unsupervised access to her as a state ward based solely on his claim of being Abbé Pierre's close companion — a name that 'was like a password, a code that allowed all access,' with no judicial investigation into René's criminal record. 8. René subjected Rachel to physical, psychological, and sexual abuse over five years — until she was 13 — including using a symbolic system: a wooden cross on the wall signaled safety, while a martinet (whip) in its place signaled Rachel to prepare for abuse. 9. At age 11, Rachel confided in a visiting DAS psychologist who 'exploded with laughter,' dismissed her as lying to escape placement, and closed the file; the next morning the group home director summoned Rachel, defended René and Abbé Pierre as 'wonderful people,' and physically slapped Rachel and dragged her through the hallway by her hair when Rachel said she was maintaining her account. 10. Rachel told her mother about René's abuse on August 15, 1977; her mother's initial reaction was near-silence, telling Rachel to eat something and stay in her room. 11. The next morning, Rachel heard the distinctive sound of her mother's bedroom window and found her straddling the ledge; she grabbed her mother's leg and screamed, but her eleven-year-old body could not hold her, and she witnessed her mother's fatal fall to the concrete below. 12. Rachel says her first reaction was 'I killed my mother' — blaming herself for having told her — but as she grew up she shifted the blame to 'these two priests' and the system that protected them, calling her mother 'a collateral victim of the system that protected Abbé Pierre.' 13. When Abbé Pierre appeared on television and radio as a beloved figure, Rachel says she watched knowing 'he's a bastard, he did horrible things to me' but that no one believed her and she assumed she was the only victim. 14. Beginning in July 2024 after a condescending meeting with a senior Emmaüs leader who minimized her account as 'plotting' (une histoire de complotisme), Rachel decided to investigate and write her book. 15. In her research, Rachel obtained René's full Vatican file — 16 pages documenting his journey from a missionary post in Africa, where he had a relationship with a young girl, to Loire-Atlantique, where he committed offenses against two five-year-olds and an eight-year-old, to his eventual release and introduction into Emmaüs by Abbé Pierre. 16. Rachel also found a handwritten letter by Abbé Pierre that references her, her mother, her brothers, René, and René's reduction to lay state — confirming direct knowledge of the situation at the highest level of Emmaüs. 17. Rachel called a public witness hotline for Abbé Pierre victims expecting to be ignored; days later, EGAE called back with a gentle voice that said, before Rachel had spoken a word, 'prenez votre temps, on vous croit' (take your time, we believe you). 18. Rachel says those three words were 'libérateur' (liberating) and that it took more than 50 years for someone to say them to her; she describes still getting chills every time she says the phrase. 19. The interview is conducted in a reflective, serious tone; Nassim asks structured questions that advance Rachel's testimony chronologically, allowing extended, uninterrupted account-giving. 20. The episode is best suited for French-speaking listeners following the Abbé Pierre scandal or broader investigations into institutional protection of serial abusers; the graphic nature of the testimony — including the description of child sexual abuse and a witnessed death — makes it unsuitable for sensitive or younger listeners.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Crimes enquêtes et investigations