Paris - Paris (AP) -

French Prime Minister François Bayrou will raise questions on Wednesday about a Catholic school in the parliamentary investigation suspected of abuse, because he has covered up his knowledge of the scandal.

Members of the National Assembly, the French House of Parliament, are expected to ask Bayrou's fifty years of private Catholic teachings near the town of Pau in southwestern France, de Bétharram, who knows about fifty years of allegations of physical and sexual abuse.

Bayrou is a long and well-known elected official in the area, and many of his children go to school. He has been the mayor of PAU since 2014, and has held the position since he became Prime Minister five months ago. He has been a member of parliament from the region for 20 years and served as the National Education Minister from 1993 to 1997.

Alain Esquerre, a spokesman for a group of victims, said more than 200 complaints have been formally filed since February 2024, including alleged abuse at school, including rapes by dozens of pastors.

When Bayrou told the National Assembly in February, the scandal took a political turn and he was not informed of the abuse at the school until in recent years. A few days later, he said he actually knew about a school supervisor’s “slap” when he was the Minister of Education in 1996, leading to his commission of a report.

Political opponents accused him of lying to parliament.

Bayrou links to school on a personal level, as several of his six children attend school, where his wife once taught catechism.

In 1998, Father Karikat filed preliminary charges for rape of a child under the age of 18 and was detained from 1987 to 1993.

A judge who handled the case told the parliamentary committee of inquiry that he met with Bayrou during which politicians expressed concern about his son, who was a student of the school.

Carricart committed suicide in 2000 and then went to trial.

Bayrou's eldest daughter, Hélène Perlant, revealed last month that she was an abused child, saying she beat her in summer camp when she was 14. Now 53, Perlant said she never talked to her father or anyone else until a book released recently told her story. "I've been silent for 30 years," she said.

Esquerre, a spokesperson for the victim, himself a former student and a victim of abuse, told the commission of inquiry in March: “It was a horrific time and no one could imagine that we were in the hands of the priests of the invaders, too.”

"For the past 70 years, I have made a list of all the pastors here, all of which are invaders.