The biggest-ever criminal trial in modern French history opens this week in the central town of Angers, when a total of 66 men and women face charges for the rape and sexual abuse of children as young as a few months old.
All the judicial records look set to be beaten when the four months of hearings start on Thursday in a specially constructed wooden hall in the town’s palais de justice. More than 60 lawyers will be taking part, and the 430-page prosecution case will take four clerks three days to read out.

Also attending will be many of the 45 victims of the alleged abuse whose stories are so harrowing that the jury will have access to a psychiatric team.

“In this trial the sordid contends with the odious,” said Marc Désert, state prosecutor in the case. According to defence lawyer Pascal Rouiller: “Some of those who were abused were babies incapable of walking – still less of making the slightest complaint.”

The testimony – which will be followed by a verdict in June – will no doubt be closely followed by a horrified nation, but doubts have already been raised over whether, in so monumental a mass trial, justice can really be done to each individual.

Comparisons have also been drawn to one of the most notorious judicial fiascos of recent times – the so-called Outreau paedophile trial in northern France last year in which 13 people were implicated by the evidence of a woman who later admitted in court that she was lying.

Many of the accused had languished for four years in prison – and one committed suicide – before being brought to trial in that affair, which also exposed the shortcomings of relying solely on the evidence of the alleged child victims.

Prosecutors in the Angers case are confident the mistakes of Outreau will not be repeated – they point out that more than half of the 66 accused have admitted their guilt – but defence lawyers are expected to make full use of the precedent.

“Of course, we will exploit Outreau. It would be a professional fault not to,” one said.

Details of the allegations against the 39 men and 27 women make appalling reading. All come from the poorest and least-educated sections of society and lived in the Saint-Leonard quarter of what is, in the main, a pleasant and leafy historic town.

“It was a bit like a slab of plastic explosive. Most of the people involved would have stayed inert were it not for the detonator – in other words, the three or four people who made the whole thing explode,” said lawyer Alain Fouquet.

Investigators were alerted to the alleged paedophile network when they decided to keep tabs on Eric Joubert, a former convicted sex offender released in 1999 who was supposed to be undergoing a course of psychiatry. He and another former offender, Franck Vergondy, were said to be the founder members of the club of perversion.

According to the prosecution, between 1999 and 2001 nearly 50 children were raped or abused – though the overall number could be much higher. The most sickening evidence concerns the way parents allegedly bartered their own children for pathetic sums of money, food parcels and cartons of cigarettes.

“Parents of one kid sold her for a new car tyre. That is the atrocious level of barbarity that we’ve reached,” said Philippe Cosnard, a lawyer representing a child protection group at the trial. Another girl of 10 was allegedly raped by more than 30 adults.

Most of the alleged abuse took place in Vergondy’s apartment and in sheds by allotments on the outskirts of Angers, as well as in caravans. Locals said they were aware of a constant traffic of voiturettes – cheap electric cars that need no licence – but nobody ever made a comment.

Indeed, the failure of anyone – including social services – to spot what was going on is one of the scandals of the affair. Many of the families were known to social workers, but no peculiar behaviour was ever reported.

“And yet in the prosecution’s case there is the testimony of a teacher who noticed that a little girl was masturbating in class repeatedly throughout the year. Why was this never passed on?” said Rouillier, a lawyer for five of the accused.

For many in France the other shocking element is the number of women accused. Of the 39 being held behind bars, 13 are female.

“It is ridiculous to suppose that women cannot be paedophiles,” said Monika Pasquini, another lawyer.

“But are the French ready to accept this transformation of their image of the soft maternal woman into a harpy, capable of raping and selling children – even her own? That is another question,” she said.

Three of the accused face life in prison if they are convicted, and the others lesser terms ranging from three to 20 years.