Death of 12-year-old Nicolas in French Catholic boarding school at center of sex abuse scandal

The boy was enrolled in Notre-Dame de Bétharram when he died of sudden meningitis in June 1980. Investigating his death, his sister discovered lapses that may have delayed the child's medical treatment, she told Le Monde. She plans to file a complaint for failure to assist a person in danger.

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Published on April 24, 2025, at 2:45 pm (Paris)

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View of the Notre-Dame de Bétharram institution, a former Catholic institution, on February 5, 2024.

At the end of February, a few weeks after the media explosion over revelations of systemic sexual abuse in Notre-Dame de Bétharram school in the Pyrénées, Nathalie started asking questions. She was one of many mothers, sisters and aunts who started wondering about the pasts of their sons, brothers or uncles who attended the private Catholic school, which is the target of a growing number of complaints of physical violence, sexual assault and rape.

Could her brother Nicolas, a student at the institution, have also been a victim? He died on June 12, 1980, at the age of 12 from meningitis at the Pau hospital and was no longer here to answer that question. But, after reading various testimonies in the press, Nathalie thought, unfortunately, her brother might have had the "typical profile" of a prey for the pedophile priests of Bétharram. So she put out an initial call for information in the messaging groups of the victims' collective. Her research led her to unexpected revelations about her brother's death.

Speaking for the first time on this subject, Nathalie agreed to tell her story to Le Monde. She simply requested that her name and her brother's name be changed. Her father was unaware of her quest for the truth. He had no idea that she planned to file a complaint against the institution in the coming days for failure to assist a person in danger. Her brother's story revealed the serious shortcomings of the institution in supervising students, potentially leading to the death of a child.

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