The biggest child abuse trial in French history will open in Brittany this month amid anger that a surgeon was allegedly able to attack hundreds of young patients over decades, targeting some when they were under anaesthetic, in the post-surgery recovery room or in their hospital beds.

France is braced for serious questions over child protection amid harrowing testimony from a record number of alleged victims of Joël Le Scouarnec, 73, who worked as a digestive surgeon. He was employed in public and private hospitals across Brittany and the west of France, often operating on children with appendicitis.

Despite being flagged to the French authorities by the FBI in 2004 for viewing child abuse imagery on the dark web, for which he was convicted and given a four-year suspended prison sentence in France in 2005, he was never prevented from working with children and continued to gain prestigious jobs in hospitals across the country.