The Grenoble prosecutor's office launched an international call for witnesses on Tuesday concerning Jacques Leveugle, 79, accused of rape and aggravated sexual assault on 89 minors in several countries between 1967 and 2022, but also of the murder of his mother and his aunt.

Published on: 02/12/2026 - 12:33

To display this YouTube content, it is necessary to authorize audience measurement and advertising cookies.

An extension in your browser appears to be blocking the loading of the video player. To be able to watch this content, you must disable or uninstall it.

An extraordinary case and a suspect whose identity was exceptionally revealed to obtain testimonies. The Grenoble public prosecutor's office launched an international call for witnesses on Tuesday February 10 concerning Jacques Leveugle, 79, accused of rape and aggravated sexual assault on 89 minors in several countries between 1967 and 2022, but also of the murder of his mother and his aunt.

Free international toll-free number: 0 800 20 01 42

“Disseminating confidential information and the identity of an indicted person, who remains presumed innocent, is not trivial” underlines Étienne Manteaux, public prosecutor of Grenoble, interviewed on France 24. “But I considered that it was inevitable in this case because the investigators are today faced with an impasse: the impossibility of identifying half of the names cited in his memoirs” he continues.

The investigation focuses particularly on Morocco, "where there is the greatest number of victims and the most recent facts, until the end of 2022", specifies the prosecutor.

15 very dense volumes of memoirs

The case of this “particularly complex character”, who liked to present himself as a “boy-lover”, arrived at the desk of investigators in Vizille (Isère) in 2022 when the nephew of the suspect, who had “suspicions” as to the actions of his uncle, gave them USB keys belonging to him.

They discovered "15 very dense volumes" of memoirs in which it appears that the man had engaged in sexual relations for decades with minor boys aged 13 to 17 in mainland France, New Caledonia, as well as in Algeria, Switzerland, Germany, Colombia, India but also in Portugal, Morocco, Niger and the Philippines.

“He traveled these different countries and in each of these places where he will settle to provide academic support, to be a teacher, he will meet young people and he will have sexual relations” with them, details the prosecutor. Investigators have identified 89 victims to date.

The former educator, who had no criminal record, was indicted and placed in pre-trial detention in February 2024 for aggravated rape and sexual assault. He is currently in pre-trial detention.

But the septuagenarian also admits in his memoirs that he voluntarily killed two people: firstly his mother in 1974, when she was suffering from terminal cancer in Maisons-Laffitte (Yvelines), whom he "suffocated with a cushion" in order to "shorten her suffering".

Then in 1992, he did it again with his aunt, a resident in Switzerland to whom he was "very close", with the same modus operandi. Aged 92, she was not sick but “vulnerable and fragile”, and he decided “to kill her too”, according to Etienne Manteaux.

Wall of silence

In the rape and assault case, to date around 150 people have been heard, but only two have decided to file a civil suit, the prosecutor told AFP.

"There is a real ambivalence among the victims, that's a bit of the singularity of this case" explained Colonel Procédès, referring to a phenomenon of "control", a "web woven by this man around each of the young people, where he invested himself intellectually to better satisfy his sexual urges".

Two toll-free numbers have been set up: 0 800 20 01 42 for France and 00 687 05 06 00 for New Caledonia (free calls).

The call for witnesses thus aims to "fetch" unidentified victims, or who only appear in the documents "by their nickname or first name", explained Colonel Procédès.

Because in fact, "time is running out", underlined the prosecutor, evoking the age of the accused but also the questions of limitation for the sexual crimes of which he is suspected (20 years after the majority until 2018 and 30 years since) and which would thus exclude "a priori" acts committed before 1993.

“If victims wish to come forward, they should do so now, because in 2026 this judicial investigation will have to be closed,” he concluded.

With AFP

Keywords associated with the article

The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.