Report finds 216,000 children were victims of French clergy sex abuse since 1950

An investigation into sexual abuse in the French Catholic Church has found that an estimated 216,000 children were victims of abuse by clergy since 1950, Jean-Marc Sauve, head of the commission that compiled the report, said on Tuesday.

The revelations in France are the latest to rock the Roman Catholic Church, after a series of sexual abuse scandals around the world, often involving children, over the past 20 years.

The abuse was systemic, Sauve said at a public, online presentation of the report, adding that the Church had shown “deep, total and even cruel indifference for years,” protecting itself rather than the victims.