Former French School Principal Detained in Unrelated Case Amid Missing Teen Investigation

"No arrest has been made in the judicial investigation into the disappearance of Lucas Tronche. A person who was then heard as a witness was arrested for different acts, partly committed outside the Gard," tweeted the Nîmes public prosecutor, Eric Maurel. Then, the person was taken into custody. It is the former head of the Albert-Einstein high school in Bagnols-sur-Cèze. Lucas Tronche, who had disappeared, attended the school.

The statements of a young girl heard as part of the investigation into the teenager’s disappearance led to the former principal being taken into custody. According to her explanations, she had a relationship with the official. At the time, she was a student at the school and was 15 years old.

The former head of the establishment, now retired, settled in the Comtat region in Vaucluse, reports Vaucluse-Matin. In 2019, he was still the principal of the Victor-Hugo French high school in Marrakech when a student had accused him of sexual harassment. Students had then organized #metoo demonstrations with placards in front of the school. Immediately afterwards, the Agency for French Education Abroad had suspended him and summoned him to its headquarters in Paris. He had subsequently been the subject of an administrative investigation.