Sexual violence in the Focolare religious movement: a call for witnesses has been launched

On Tuesday 2 January, the Police Prefecture began a collection of witnesses against Jean-Michel Merlin, a man of the Church and member of the Catholic religious movement Focolare, targeted by accusations of sexual violence against minors and adults.

About thirty victims were declared

This can be read in the Prefecture’s press release, shared on Xthe attacks would have been committed “over the years within this religious movement “, with “number of victims” that they would come forward to report what they had suffered.

Seizure, the territorial protection brigade of the territorial security family of the Hauts-de-Seine is now “responsible for continuing the investigations, and in particular for the search for witnesses and victims not yet identified”.

In a long investigation, the site Days had already implicated the churchman, revealing in 2020 that around thirty alleged victims had declared themselves. The media had in particular collected the testimony of Christophe Renaudin, who said that he had been attacked in his home at the age of 14-16 by Jean-Michel Merlin and that he had filed a complaint against the latter in 1994.

According to the media, the Focolare movement, which today has 2,000 members and 15,000 sympathizers, would have been aware of the accusations made against its member as early as the 1970s, but only in 2016 was the latter excluded.