Forty-five years later, Olivier Maitre looks shifty when telling his story. The story of an 8 year old boy who arrived with his parents in Vorges-les-Pins, a village du Doubs, in 1978. It was that year that the sexual assaults by his teacher began. This 53-year-old marketing manager, who now lives in the neighboring village of Busy, says he was a victim of sexual violence until 1981.
He still remembers the teacher’s beige two-horse, who one day asked his mother for permission to take him to football. However, there was no training that day. “On the way back, he parks his car in his aunt’s yard and takes me to a shed behind the house. There he pulled down my pants and gave me oral sex. I was petrified”he testifies.
In addition to his memories, Olivier Maitre kept a class photo yellowed by time, dating from 1981. His long blond hair surrounds a childish face. He points to the teacher, in a checkered shirt, at the back of the room. Then returns to his neighbor. “He was hit too. » Another child. ” Her too. » Another one. ” The same. » Of the twenty young people in the class that year, at least five were victims of attacks, according to him.
Like Olivier Maitre, other alleged victims decided to break what has always been a village secret, in Vorges, but also in Busy, where children were also affected. Since November 2022, eight complaints have been filed and brought to the attention of the Besançon public prosecutor’s office. A ninth has just been filed at the end of 2023, according to the collective of victims, which estimates that the known attacks took place between the beginning of the 1970s and the end of the 1980s. All the facts are prescribed – the limitation period is twenty years after the victim reaches the age of majority for sexual assault.
In October 2023, an anonymous letter, distributed to all the mailboxes of Vorges-les-Pins and Busy, disrupted the quiet daily life of these two villages of 500 inhabitants. Without naming him, the missive alerted to the behavior of the former schoolteacher, now 76 years old, calling for more vigilance and awareness on these subjects which remain taboo in the villages, where the teacher could also be a figure respected as the mayor and the priest.
“Problems like this are everywhere”
At the time, he was the only teacher, in Vorges, of a single class, from kindergarten to CM2, before the educational grouping with Busy, in 1983. The father of three children is a figure in the village, facilitator of the summer camps in Haut-Doubs, player and coach for around ten years in the football team bringing together the two municipalities. Retired since 2005, he is an assiduous member of the Vorges senior citizens club and is president of the Les Vieilles Pierres association, which has been dedicated, since March 2019, to the preservation of local heritage.
You have 85% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.