SOLÈNE REVENEY / LE MONDE USING ISTOCK
There is no doubt that Dr. A is trustworthy. Consider the major public hospital employing him in Brussels, the academic degrees he displays on the hospital's website and that slight smile in his photo. How could it be otherwise?
Yet the 65-year-old doctor, a specialist in cardiology and vascular diseases who, as the receptionist confirmed on a March day, sees patients "every day of the week, at two locations," is hiding a major secret: He is subject to a "permanent ban on practicing medicine" in France.
The Criminal Court of Aix-en-Provence sentenced him in April 2024 to four years in prison, including 18 months to be served under electronic monitoring, for sexual assaults committed against at least 12 patients in 2017 and 2018 at his practice in the south of France. According to their consistent accounts, the victims, who had come for cardiac problems, were subjected to groping of their breasts, buttocks and intimate areas – incidents that were filmed without their knowledge by Dr. A. On March 1, 2025, the French Order of Physicians struck him off its register.
This is not an isolated case. For several weeks, Le Monde, together with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Belgian daily De Tijd and broadcaster France 2, investigated European doctors who, although banned from practicing in their home countries, continue to work under the radar elsewhere, potentially putting new patients at risk.
