A man was indicted on suspicion of having raped a 4-year-old girl with a disability, in his care as a family assistant. The suspect turns out to be a man involved in politics, with LFI, and in the associative world.
The La France Insoumise (LFI) party finds itself, despite itself, involved in a sordid affair. One of his former candidates was indicted for “rape with acts of torture and barbarity on a minor under 15 years old by a person in authority” and “sexual assault” on September 25, as well as placed in pre-trial detention. The man is accused of having abused a 4-year-old girl with a disability for whom he was in charge as a family assistant.
The affair, revealed on September 30 by BFMTVbroke out after the suspect was indicted five days earlier in the suburbs of Nantes, in Loire-Atlantique. The man was arrested after “unbearable” videos were reported to investigators from the Minors Office (OFMIN) depicting the rape of a disabled girl of French nationality. The presence of a medical bed in the images made it possible, after a week of investigation, to identify the child victim of abuse and to find his family assistant suspected of being the attacker. Placed in police custody by the Nantes judicial police on September 23, the man confessed to having raped the 4-year-old girl and to having broadcast videos of the abuse on French and foreign pedophile networks.
Who is the suspect?
What is the connection between this man accused of raping a child and LFI? West France reveals this Wednesday, October 2 that the suspect named Pierre-Alain Cottineau is a former candidate who participated in the Loire-Atlantique departmental elections in 2021 under the LFI label. The man, aged 32, is very involved in the associative sector in Loire-Atlantique according to information from BFMTV. And this commitment would also be political, but only at the local level. LFI confirmed the presence of Pierre-Alain Cottineau among its candidates in 2021 and initiated an exclusion procedure against the respondent. “An action to exclude the alleged author from all groups and bodies of the movement was initiated upon publication of this information, with immediate effect, with the Committee for Respect for the Principles of the movement,” writes the party in a press release. A representative of LFI in Loire-Atlantique assuresNews Nantes that the party is “deeply upset and shocked by this tragedy”.
Pierre-Alain Cottineau obtained approval from Loire-Atlantique child welfare to become a foster family at the beginning of 2023. According to BFMTV, the suspect had asked the ASE to only accommodate children aged 0 to 6 years old. The individual has a clean criminal record, yet he is described as a “sexual predator” with a very worrying profile to BFMTV. The reasons for the concern include his numerous contacts with institutions welcoming children. It has numerous relays within National Education through its associative commitments and its approval with the ASE. In recent years he was also employed as a caregiver and during his teenage years he worked as a babysitter.