Seventeen Paris families file criminal complaint against Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire and Anne Hidalgo

Criminal complaint lodged against city leadership

On 4 September 2026, seventeen families belonging to the collective MeTooEcole filed a formal criminal complaint with the Paris prosecutor's office against the City of Paris, current Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire, and former Mayor Anne Hidalgo. The complaint alleges deliberate endangerment of the lives of others, failure to assist persons in danger, and failure to report sexual assault against minors within public school extracurricular services. The legal action follows accusations of sexual abuse and physical violence committed by after-school facilitators across several municipal schools. Lawyers for the families state that municipal leaders were alerted to safety risks in childcare programs as early as 2015 but failed to act.

Maxime Delacarte, a lawyer representing the families, described the institutional response during an interview on Franceinfo.

The complaint filed against the City of Paris, its Socialist mayor Emmanuel Grégoire, and his predecessor Anne Hidalgo, aims to show the guilty silence that put our children in danger.

Oversight failures and hiring practices

The allegations point to systemic lapses in the hiring and supervision of municipal after-school staff, known as animateurs. In 2015, an internal report from the Paris general inspection service recommended 50 specific reform measures to mitigate risks to school-age children in municipal care. According to the families' attorneys, the administration did not implement these recommendations, allowing personnel to be hired without mandatory professional qualifications. The resulting oversight gaps led to multiple reported incidents across Paris nursery and elementary schools. In response to recent scrutiny, Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire announced plans to introduce mandatory training for applicants and implement stricter reporting mechanisms for suspected abuse.

Scale of ongoing judicial and administrative investigations

Judicial and administrative authorities have opened extensive inquiries into misconduct across Parisian primary schools and daycare facilities. By September 2026, prosecutors were conducting 203 active criminal investigations into suspected violence within school and extracurricular settings. Since the beginning of 2026, the City of Paris has suspended 132 facilitators, including 52 individuals removed over suspicions of sexual or gender-based violence. Formal trial requests have been filed in six cases. In earlier judicial rulings, one facilitator received an 18-month suspended sentence, while two others were acquitted, with appeals pending in all three decisions. Ahead of the new school term, municipal authorities also distributed informational displays at school gates detailing active safety protocols.

Defence response from municipal representatives

Representatives for the accused municipal leaders have disputed the grounds for criminal liability. Patrick Klugman, attorney for former mayor Anne Hidalgo, who served from 2014 until March 2026, rejected claims that senior leadership harboured or protected abusive staff. He argued on France Inter that decisions regarding recruitment and daily supervision occurred far below the mayoral office.

At this stage, you have not a single testimony, not a single decision, you have no evidence that would indicate that Anne Hidalgo would see her criminal liability engaged.

Klugman acknowledged the severity of the allegations facing the city but maintained that the legal complaint lacked valid statutory foundations for holding executive officials criminally culpable. Meanwhile, Emmanuel Grégoire, who previously served as first deputy mayor under Hidalgo before taking office in March 2026, noted his personal background as a past victim of school abuse while pledging administrative cooperation with judicial authorities.