The trial, which is expected to last four months, will also focus on how Le Scouarnec was allowed to continue operating on children despite having been convicted and given a four-month suspended sentence for possessing child sexual abuse images in 2005.
Before the trial opened, Frédéric Benoist, a lawyer for the child protection association la Voix de L’Enfant (Child’s Voice), a civil party in the case, said it was “scandalous” that L’Ordre des Médecins was included in the case along with the victims.
The abuse is alleged to have taken place between 1989 and 2014, when Le Scouarnec worked at more than a dozen private and public hospitals in Brittany and other parts of western France.
When detectives searched his home they found hard disks containing more than 300,000 photos and videos featuring child sexual abuse, as well as notebooks recording details of the alleged abuse of patients.
Joël Le Scouarnec tells court on first day of trial he will take responsibility for his actions.
