A pedophile case involving 66 adults accused of abusing 45 children opened in the historic city of Angers on Thursday in what the news media are calling the largest criminal proceeding in French history.
The trial, in which 39 men and 27 women are charged with rape or selling their children for sex, has set off a national debate about the erosion of moral values and the state's ability to protect underprivileged children.
Nearly all of the people involved come from the French underclass, and the case came to light while police were monitoring a convicted sex offender.
"I don't dare believe that this is specific to France, but it shows that there is gangrene in our society," said Yves Crespin, a lawyer for the children.
He added that the country's child protection services do not have the resources to do their job.
"We have gone, in the words of a historian, `from tolerance to scandal,"' read an editorial in Liberation, a Paris daily, adding that the evolution reached beyond national boundaries.
"That this trial is happening at the same time as that of Michael Jackson's is not coincidental either," the newspaper said. "But in Angers, there is no glitter, just mud and night."
Just a year ago, France endured a sordid pedophile trial of 18 people in the northern port of Outreau that ended with a suicide and 10 convictions.
The Outreau case was roiled late in the trial by the central defendant's suddenly retracting her story implicating other defendants in the abuse of at least 18 children, leaving many people uncertain of the guilt of some of those convicted.
Lawyers in the current case say it is much stronger -- about half of the accused have reportedly confessed to crimes.
But physical evidence remains slim.
pedophilia
Marcela Iacub, a sexuality specialist at France's National Center for Scientific Research, suggested that the recent rash of pedophilia cases reflected a lack of rigor on the part of investigators and too great a reliance on the accusations of children.
"The population isn't contaminated with sexual deviants, that's ridiculous," she said.
"We put people in prison simply on witness testimony but often without proof," she added.
With so many individuals involved in the current case, lawyers are voicing concern that jurors may judge the defendants as a group without differentiating among individual charges.
The most serious charges carry a penalty of 20 years in prison.
"It's a mass criminal procedure and we're asking the jurors to become professional judges, capable of distinguishing individual situations amid a sea of accused," said Pascal Rouiller, a defense lawyer representing five of the accused.
He added that the jurors will have to follow and retain the testimony of hundreds of witnesses.
"It's beyond their competence," he said.
The trial, which is expected to last until June, will take place in a courtroom built for the purpose at a cost of more than US$1.3 million.
About 150 witnesses are expected to be called.
Thursday's hearing concerned whether the proceedings will be open to the public.
Prosecutors charge that the abuse took place between January 1999 and February 2002, with about 15 couples accused of offering their children for sex in exchange for small sums of money, groceries and even cigarettes.
The oldest of the suspected victims were teenagers, the youngest just months old.
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