Osteopathy illustration.

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  • A new woman lodged a complaint last Tuesday for sexual assault against the founder of the Atman school, on the Valbonne campus, 30 km from Nice.

  • Students but also patients accuse Marc Bozzetto of "inappropriate gestures" during consultations.

It all started in 2016. A student files a complaint in Montreal where she accuses Marc Bozzetto of sexual assault for 90 minutes during a symposium, as reported by Nice-Matin.

Four and a half years later, a judicial investigation was opened by the Grasse prosecutor's office after the four complaints filed for sexual assault or rape against the director of the famous school of osteopathy Atman, located in Sophia Antipolis, on the Côte d ' Azure.

In the file published this Tuesday, six women (including one who has not lodged a complaint) who oppose everything, tell the same stories.

According to daily information, it is "kisses on the breasts, cunnilingus, masturbation, crude words, digital penetration" that Marc Bozzetto justified by evoking a method of pelvic osteopathy.

Last week, an Azuréenne was added to the list.

She decided to file a complaint against the founder of the school after reading that a judicial investigation had opened.

The facts concerning her took place in 2013 during a consultation.

"To date, he has not been summoned or indicted," responded Me Karine Benadava, the Parisian lawyer for Marc Bozzetto.

The 80-year-old osteopath today, had already been taken into custody during the opening of a preliminary investigation in 2018, when the case was revealed by France 3 Côte d'Azur.

“Inappropriate gestures” with his students and his patients

"We now hope that the investigation will evolve quickly," commented Me Julien Darras, lawyer of a thirty-something who accuses facts that can be qualified as rape dating from 2013 when she was a student.

He also represents a 57-year-old lady, accusing the facts of assault during a consultation in 2016.

In the first report of France 3, broadcast in February, Marc Bozzetto was accused by two young women testifying anonymously.

They affirmed that the practitioner had made inappropriate words and gestures "in places that one does not want to expose".

The octogenarian replied, in front of the camera, that it was "a normal feeling for women, but if all the women that we work on the pool complain, we no longer get out of it and we must stop the profession of 'pelvic osteopath'.

The Atman school, which trains around 300 students in five years, is presented as the first holistic osteopathy campus in France.

Justice

Two complaints for sexual assault against the director of a school of osteopathy in Valbonne

Nice

A priest, among the alleged victims of Father Jean-Marc Schoepff, testifies in Nice

  • Rape

  • Investigation

  • Sexual assault

  • Nice