France can and must be at the forefront of the fight against child abuse: this was the outcome of a meeting on Tuesday 8 August 2023 in Paris between representatives of Justice Initiative and Sébastien Gallois, member of the cabinet of French Secretary of State for Child Protection, Charlotte Caubel, representatives of the Fédération des Enfants Déracinés des DROM (FEDD) and the Région Nouvelle Aquitaine were also present at the meeting. The exchange followed the meeting on 7 July with Sarah Sauneron and Pierre-Calendal Fabre from the Cabinet of French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
Justice Initiative, a movement launched by the Swiss philanthropist Guido Fluri and represented on this occasion by the director of the French hub Valérie Andanson and two members of the NGO’s board, took the opportunity to illustrate to Sébastien Gallois its work in preventing and combating abuse at a European level. Emphasis was placed on the petition launched in Europe to make the internet a safe place for children: it calls for the adoption of new European legislation to protect minors from online abuse and to allow protected use of the internet by the authorities in Brussels. A second line of action of Justice Initiative concerns the past: Gallois was informed of the motion filed by Justice Initiative in autumn 2021 in Strasbourg at the Council of Europe. The text focuses on four fundamental elements: truth, recognition, reparation and prevention.
Participants of the meeting discussed the various possibilities for the French authorities to support these actions carried out by Justice Initiative. Similar to what Sarah Sauneron and Pierre-Calandal Fabre had done a month earlier, Sébastien Gallois testified to the French ministerial authorities’ commitment to child protection and guaranteed openness and availability in relation to both dossiers. It was decided to keep channels open for fruitful cooperation.
The meeting was also attended by Guillaume Fourgeaud, Deputy Director of the Cabinet of the President of the Nouvelle Aquitaine Region, and the lawyer Élisabeth Rabesandratana, who represents the survivors at the ICC. They presented a project to create a place of memory and resources in Guéret, in the Creuse region, for the children of Réunion known as ‘de la Creuse’, in collaboration with the FEDD.
