Overview
- Church education authorities confirmed the historic Bétharram site will shut at the end of the week and the college community will be hosted at the Igon campus from the next school year, officials told Le Parisien and AFP.
- About 160 current middle-school pupils who now study at the renamed Beau Rameau will be transferred to Igon, a site four kilometres away that already serves pupils from primary school through lycée.
- Two hundred seventeen former pupils have lodged complaints alleging physical, sexual and moral abuse tied to the establishment, and the school has become a focal point in wider scrutiny of abuse in Catholic education.
- Authorities say preparatory work and investment are planned to adapt Igon for the influx, with short-term summer repairs budgeted and larger multi-year spending earmarked for the wider school project.
- Investigations and recognition efforts will continue as reporting cites a wider review that estimates many more victims over decades and notes most abuse claims are now time-barred but have prompted criminal probes and institutional reforms.