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A school assistant will go on trial in Paris on Tuesday accused of sexual mistreatment of young children in his care.

It is the latest case in a year-long scandal that has shaken the school system in the French capital, where some 15,000 such assistants – known as animateurs – are employed as non-teaching staff.

Currently enquiries are under way at nearly 100 Paris crèches, kindergartens and junior schools where animateurs have been accused of inappropriate, aggressive or sexualised behaviour.

Trials in three other cases are to take place over the summer, and a verdict is due in a fourth which was held earlier this month. More are likely to follow.

Last week police detained 16 people after a swoop at three schools in the 7th arrondissement or district. Three people were subsequently charged with sexually inappropriate behaviour to children.

Tuesday's case centres on the Alphonse Baudin junior school in the 11th arrondissement, where the animateur is accused of sexualised touching with five children.

One man told the BBC that in April 2025 he had already spotted unusual signs in his four-year-old daughter when another parent reported that their child had been molested.

"My wife took our daughter into the garden and asked her if she had been touched in after-school time, and she said 'Yes, David touches me and gives me cuddles.'

"My wife said, 'Show me', and my daughter started stroking her back in a bizarre way. That's when we knew something was wrong."

The scandal has created a climate of mistrust and fear among parents of young children in Paris, many of whom accuse the City Hall – which employs the animateurs – of failing initially to take the complaints seriously.

According to after-school association SOS-Périscolaire, the main problem has been the low quality of animateurs, who are poorly paid and at most need only a basic certificate in child management to get a job. Sometimes the pressure to recruit is so great that even that requirement is waived.

Elisabeth Guthmann, who founded the association in 2021, said it was in response to the growing number of stories circulating among parents about teasing, taunting and other types of low-level abuse by animateurs.

She cited a case of four animateurs at a junior school in the 16th arrondissement who "set up a fight-club with the other children standing around shouting 'Hit him!'".

The new mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, has vowed to reform the recruitment system with €20m (£17.2m) for training and monitoring. He also said animateurs would be automatically suspended after a single complaint had been lodged. Since the start of the year nearly 80 have been suspended.

The animateurs – most of whom are on short-term contracts – are expected to look after young children during meal-times and in the afternoons after classes finish. They are supposed to conduct various sporting, craft and leisure activities.

But the assistants say they themselves are now victims of generalised suspicion and discrimination because of the scandal. Last week they staged a strike to call for recognition and more investment in their profession.

"Parents have, so to speak, taken power over the schools and started reporting things. Except that not everything they report is necessarily accurate," said Carla Bonnet of the FO union.

"City Hall is no longer objective," said Rémi, an after-school assistant. "It doesn't investigate [the allegations]… it doesn't look after us.

"Working with children today, at the drop of a hat you can be accused of absolutely anything."

"When you have a system in which workers aren't properly paid or trained or monitored, and where there's no money or proper procedures for raising the alert, it's not surprising that things get out of control," said Grégoire Ensel of the parents' organisation FCPE.

The scandal has been centred on Paris, but activists say that similar problems exist across the country.

With reporting by Leontine Gallois and Xavier Pallas.

If you are affected by any of the issues in this story, support and information are available at BBC Action Line.

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Some of Britain's rarest birds of prey are still being illegally killed despite decades of legal protection, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

The charity's report, to be published on Wednesday, records 921 confirmed attacks between 2015 and 2024, with more than half, according to the RSPB, on or near land managed for game shooting.

Mark Thomas, head of the RSPB's investigations unit, said the killings were "about money", with birds of prey targeted to stop them taking young pheasants, partridges or grouse, leaving more birds to be shot by paying customers.

Shooting organisations strongly deny persecution is widespread across the industry. They say it is carried out by a small minority and condemn it outright.

But the RSPB is calling for gamebird shooting in England and Wales to be licensed, arguing estates should face tougher consequences when protected birds are killed on their land.

Targeted species include eagles, red kites, peregrine falcons, hen harriers, goshawks and barn owls. The RSPB says it only classifies cases as "confirmed" when they are backed by forensic, eyewitness or video evidence.

Its investigations unit, staffed by former police officers and bird experts, works to identify those suspected of killing protected birds. The RSPB says evidence gathered by its investigators, including hidden-camera footage, has helped secure three convictions this year.

Two involved birds being beaten to death after they were caught in traps. One case involved a buzzard, the other a goshawk. Some live-capture traps are permitted for pest control of species like crows and pigeons, but traps must be checked regularly and non-target species released unharmed.

The third case involved covert surveillance at a hen harrier roost in the Yorkshire Dales where investigators captured evidence of a planned attempt to kill one of the UK's rarest birds of prey.

RSPB footage showed head gamekeeper Racster Dingwall arriving with a shotgun while hidden audio recorded a discussion of killing other protected birds and whether a harrier might be satellite-tagged.

Dingwall later admitted offences linked to an attempt to kill a protected hen harrier and was ordered to pay a fine of £1,520.

The RSPB says recorded incidents have fallen in recent years, but argues the long-term pattern shows criminal prosecutions alone are not enough.

It wants gamebird shooting in England and Wales to be licensed, as red grouse shooting now is in Scotland. It says licences could be suspended or withdrawn at the civil standard of proof, even where a criminal prosecution is difficult.

Shooting organisations oppose the proposals, saying it would penalise responsible estates and risk conservation work.

"What we should do is strengthen law enforcement to prosecute individuals who commit these crimes. They have no place in the modern shooting community," Dr Marnie Lovejoy, of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, told the BBC.

She said licensing would add another layer of regulation to activities already covered by law and would affect everyone involved in shooting.

She added that the sector makes a significant contribution to nature recovery, spending around £500m a year on conservation work – the equivalent, BASC estimates, of 26,000 full-time jobs and 14m workdays.

The government has not backed the RSPB's proposals, but says it will work with the shooting sector and others to explore wider measures, including licensing.

A Defra spokesperson told the BBC: "Many estates already meet high environmental standards, and we want all estates to achieve these same high standards."

Professor Davy McCracken, from Scotland's Rural College, has spent 35 years studying upland management and wildlife. He says the tension between protecting birds of prey and managing land for grouse shooting is ultimately economic: "That is where the root of the conflict actually lands."

But he agrees persecution is carried out by a minority of those with game-shooting interests, and says focusing only on them can obscure conservation work elsewhere in the sector.

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The boss of Next has warned there has been a "dramatic fall" in the number of entry-level job opportunities in the UK.

Lord Wolfson told the BBC that just two years ago, Next typically received 10 applicants for every job in its shops, but that number had since risen to 19.

"That doubling of applicants for shop jobs is indicative of just how big the crisis is in youth unemployment at the moment," he said.

He also said a ban on zero-hours contracts from next year would make hiring more difficult.

The government calls such contracts "exploitative" and argues its Employment Rights Act ends "one-sided flexibility", making companies provide a "baseline" of security and predictability for staff.

Conservative peer Lord Wolfson also called on the government to reverse its hike in the rate employers have to pay in National Insurance, along with minimum wage rises. But he said economic growth was the main solution to boosting the jobs market.

"Youth unemployment is really a symptom of wider problems with employment in the economy, and of course, if you've got fewer jobs, the people who suffer most are the people with the least experience and that is the youngest," the chief executive said.

A Treasury spokesperson said increasing the national minimum wage boosted pay for more than 200,000 young workers, and pointed out that employer national insurance contributions were lower when hiring under-21s.

"Cutting wages for the lowest paid during a time of global uncertainty is not the answer," the spokesperson said, adding a £2.5bn youth employment support package would "deliver a million opportunities across the country".

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson, who claimed the Next boss was paid £7m last year, said the government's Budget has allowed it to stabilise the economy and deliver support for families and businesses.

There are growing concerns over the number of young people not working. Latest figures show the unemployment rate for 16 to 24-year-olds is 16.2%, the highest since last 2014, and more than three times the rate of general unemployment at 5%.

High street retailers and hospitality businesses such as restaurants, cafes and pubs often offer the first experience of work for many young people, especially those still at school and in further education.

But businesses including Next have warned that an increase in taxes for employers and higher minimum wages were affecting their ability to create roles, particularly lower paid, part-time jobs. Sluggish economic growth can also have an impact on hiring, as businesses tend to hold off investment.

Lord Wolfson said, as a result of cost increases, Next had fewer staff in individual shops, but its online business was thriving. He previously said government policies had seen Next's wage bill rise by £70m per year.

He added the retailer was increasingly using automation and other technology, such as self-scanning lockers for customers to return items instead of having staff on tills.

Next is seen as a high street success story and a business that has evolved and adapted while its rivals from years gone by have gone to the wall.

It has hoovered up brands including Joules, Fatface, Cath Kidson, and Made.com that have struggled in recent years, and employs more than 30,000 people across its businesses. Earlier this month, the retailer increased its full-year profit expectations to £1.2bn, with sales up 6.2% in the first quarter.

But Lord Wolfson rejected any suggestion the retailer was choosing shareholders over workers.

"When people talk about a company making a billion pounds, they assume that that's somehow a person with a billion pounds in their pocket and they must be very, very rich. But the nature of public companies is that we are owned by hundreds of thousands of savers whose savings are often very modest," he said.

"The average dividend we'll pay out to an individual saver will be around £300 a year."

Lord Wolfson insisted Next had to make a profit. "If you look at retail over the last 25 years… 70 to 80% of the names that were there then have gone. And what you can't do is say, we just won't run the business for profit because if you don't run the business for profit, you just don't stay in business," he said.

He also repeated his criticisms of the government's Employment Rights Act, warning one aspect of the legislation meant it was "going to get much harder" for Next to offer more hours for its staff.

One of the reforms includes a requirement for employers to offer guaranteed hours to casual workers in a bid to curb the use of zero-hours contracts.

Lord Wolfson said he agreed with eliminating zero-hours contracts in most sectors, but said the new rules were tricky for retail, "because the risk is you then have to contract for those hours forever".

"You can't afford to… have the same number of people in your shop in February as you have in and around Christmas," the Conservative peer said.

"That's going to be bad news for our colleagues who want extra hours, particularly students who, in holiday time, need extra hours, and of course bad news for customers because service won't be as good."

However the Trades Union Congress said the policy was "hugely popular" and the right to a regular-hours contract "is set to be based on a reference period over several months which will even out peaks and troughs", and would not impact holiday jobs.

"This will give insecure workers on variable hours security in their working lives which they are so badly lacking at the moment," a spokesperson added.

But rather than focusing specifically on solving youth unemployment, the long-serving Next boss said the government should focus on reforming planning laws, energy policy and transport networks to boost overall economic growth.

Lord Wolfson called on the government to release more land for building, suggesting the cost of an acre of agricultural land in the south-east of England was about £15,000, but jumped to as high as £1.5m with planning permission.

"All of these things are holding the economy back and if government could just take its foot off the brakes, we could have a much, much faster growing economy," he added.

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