The Grenoble public prosecutor's office launched a broad call for witnesses on Tuesday concerning a 79-year-old man. The suspect, Jacques Leveugle, is suspected of rape and aggravated sexual assault on 89 minors in several countries between 1967 and 2022, as well as the murder of his mother and aunt several decades ago.

Published on: 02/10/2026 - 3:24 p.m. Modified on: 02/10/2026 - 3:24 p.m.

The Grenoble research section speaks of “a textbook case of seriality”. On Tuesday February 10, French justice launched a broad call for witnesses after the arrest of a 79-year-old man. The latter is suspected of rape and aggravated sexual assault on 89 minors, as well as for the murder of his mother and aunt.

This is a "slightly unusual" case, euphemized the Grenoble prosecutor, Étienne Manteaux, who insisted on making public the identity of the suspect, Jacques Leveugle, born in 1946 in Annecy. “This name must be known because the objective is to allow possible victims to come forward,” he explained during a press conference.

The case of this "particularly complex character" who liked to present himself as a "boy-lover", a term he considered "prettier than pederast", 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.

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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 France, New Caledonia and eight other countries: Algeria, Switzerland, Germany, Morocco, Niger, Colombia, Philippines, Portugal.

“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 these young people,” according to the prosecutor. Investigators have identified 89 victims to date.

Jacques Leveugle, "cultured and charismatic", took these young people under his wing and proceeded by "intellectual seduction of the minor and (for the) sexual side, the approach is then made through laughter". He saw himself "like an ancient Greek training young ephebes", reports Étienne Manteaux.

He killed his mother and aunt

“There has never been any violence committed. We are really on moral constraints,” added Colonel Serge Procédès, commander of the Grenoble research section, referring to “a textbook case of seriality”.

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

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".

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Then in 1992 it was the turn of his aunt, to whom he was "very close" and resident in Switzerland, with the same operating procedure. Aged 92, she was not ill but "vulnerable and fragile", but he decided "to kill her too", according to Étienne Manteaux.

“If any victims wish to come forward, they should do so now.”

The defendant “legitimizes his action by considering that he would like the same thing to be done to him if he found himself in this end-of-life situation,” the magistrate further explained. The two murders are now the subject of a separate investigation.

In the rape and assault case, to date around 150 people have been heard and the call for witnesses aims to consolidate the life story of Jacques Leveugle.

It is also used to "search" for unidentified victims, some of whom appear only by their first or last name, "in particular the acts which were committed in New Caledonia between 1983 and 1985", explained Serge 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 it will be necessary, in 2026, to close this judicial information if we actually want to be able to judge within a reasonable time,” he concluded.

With AFP

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