Circular Royal

One calls Royal Circulaire the instruction addressed into 1997 to the agents of the public service of the French state education concerning the fight against the Pédophilie by the minister delegated to State education, Ségolène Royal.

Context

In March 1997, a few months after the Affaire Dutroux had burst in Belgium, a network of traffic of cassettes paedophiles is dismantled in France. Several teachers and two headmasters are blamed, and one of the cassettes proves to be turned in a school. July 4th, 1997, Ségolène Royal announces in front of the Superior council of education his intention to provide to state education a “ethical code” clarifying the procedures to be respected.

Contents

This text recalls the legal requirement made to any person announce to the legal authorities any crime or offense of which it would have been informed. Being the public agents which, in the performance of their duties, are informed of a crime or an offense, article 40 of the Criminal procedure code particularly makes them obligation to warn of it without delay the public prosecutor.

If an public agent would be blamed, the circular indicates that a measurement of “suspension” must be taken without delay, on a purely conservatory basis and “in order to avoid useless polemics on the possible inertia of the administration”.

Criticisms

In a context marked by the increase in the number of the businesses where teachers are blamed on the penal level, the Royal point of the “Circular” recommending the immediate suspension was criticized and read as a questioning of the principle of the presumption of innocence.

See too

Related articles

External bonds

  • the official text

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