Abuse case that has brought French society to a new low - Telegraph

"This is not the third world, this is the fourth world," said Monika Pasquini, a defence lawyer, a reference to the squalor and poverty of the defendants' world.

Apart from a journalist and a social worker, the majority of the accused are unemployed and poorly educated. Several are illiterate and, according to Mme Pasquini, "some are on the borderline of being mentally handicapped".
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But one of the trial's most shocking elements is the number of women in the dock.

"It is ridiculous to suppose that women cannot be paedophiles," said Mrs Pasquini, the defence lawyer. "But are the French ready to accept this transformation of their image of the soft maternal woman into a harpy capable of raping and selling children - even her own? That's another question."

Extraordinary court cases are nothing new in France and a recent paedophile trial in Outreau ended in a fiasco with several defendants wrongly having spent years behind bars.

But yesterday as the accused - flanked by lawyers and gendarmes - rose in turn to give their names and addresses it appeared that French society had stooped to a new low and that all morality had broken down in families which were themselves victims of generations of incest.

Some of the accused seemed incapable of grasping the gravity of their predicament. One answered the presiding judge with a "yes" rather than a "oui", apparently as a joke.

My take. I am reminded of one of my core beliefs: we're all the same. Don't think your country isn't capable of producing excellence or sloth, good or evil. The culture and the institutions in which we live do matter.

I hasten to add, one institution that is absolutely necessary is that each of us remains accountable for our actions even if we may be victims of our social environment. At the same time, where the social environment is a cause of poverty or depravity the larger society bears responsibility to seek and implement the most effective remediation.