With each new scandal, France is outraged. With each new affair, political leaders promise. With each revelation, the television sets go up in flames, the declarations follow one another, the commissions multiply. Then time passes. The emotion subsides. And the children stay alone.
I condemn a Republic which knows and which does not want. I condemn our leaders, of all sides and all alternations, for having subordinated the protection of children to the logic of political communication.
I condemn successive governments for only responding to sexual violence against minors when a media scandal forces them to do so, eliminating any global reflection on this scourge.
Because the truth is there: if the protection of children were truly a national priority, our country would not have millions of adults still carrying the wounds of a childhood destroyed in silence.
A systemic phenomenon
Child crime is not a succession of news items. It’s a mass phenomenon. A systemic phenomenon. A permanent human disaster. A national tragedy. One of the greatest moral failures of our time.
And yet, we continue to treat it as a passing emergency, in step with current political events.
For decades, victims spoke into the void. We have heard this word. We have seen it break against doubt, disbelief or indifference. We have seen women and men wait years for what we already knew to finally be recognized.
They were ignored, minimized, suspected, often humiliated. Even today, despite the progress made, how many are refusing to file a complaint? How many see their case closed? How many wait years for a court decision?
I condemn the political mediocrity of believing that one more law will be enough to repair decades of blindness.
The laws are piling up. The reports are piling up. Promises repeat themselves.
The need for courage
But where is the courage?
Courage would have consisted of making child protection a national cause with exceptional resources.
Courage would have consisted of massively strengthening the number of investigators, magistrates, experts, psychologists and social workers, those who face every day a reality whose atrocity overwhelms institutions as much as consciences.
Courage would have consisted of accepting that the real scale of sexual violence against children causes an unprecedented judicial, institutional and budgetary shock.
Because fully recognizing the scale of the phenomenon would require the State to mobilize considerable resources which it still refuses to commit.
The requirement of choice
This would require choices. This would impose priorities. This would force political leaders to go beyond electoral calculations and career deadlines.
In this regard, the ousting of Édouard Durand from the presidency of the Ciivise (1) constituted a disastrous signal. His listening to victims, his demand for truth and his refusal of denial had nevertheless achieved what politics often fails to accomplish: achieving unanimity.
The real obstacle is not ignorance.
The real obstacle is a political will that stops where the cost of truth begins.
The Republic does not live up to the childhood it claims to protect.
We live in a country where everyone affirms that children are sacred. But a country is judged less by its declarations than by its budgets, its priorities and its actions.
Responsibility to history
History will perhaps remember that our generation knew the extent of violence against children. She will remember that we have testimonies, studies, reports, figures and alerts.
Public officials have one last chance: to finally look at reality as it is and draw the consequences.
Because shame is not born from failure. It arises from the stubborn refusal to draw consequences.
The great victory will be that of the collective conscience, that of the victims who refused to remain silent, that of the citizens who refused to look away, that of a society which wrests the truth from the silence.
The time of ignorance has passed. Begins that of responsibility. Because if history were to judge our era, it would not blame it for having ignored it. She would blame him for knowing. And despite this, we have preferred to protect reputations, institutions and conventions rather than children for too long.
(1) Independent commission on incest and sexual violence against children
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