French prosecutors on Tuesday appealed for witnesses after a former teacher was charged with the aggravated rape and sexual assault of 89 minors over more than five decades across multiple countries, in what authorities described as an unusually extensive abuse case.Prosecutor Etienne Manteaux said the suspect, Jacques Leveugle, a 79-year-old former educator born in 1946 in the Alpine town of Annecy, was placed under formal investigation in 2024 and has been held in custody since then. In a rare move under French law, prosecutors publicly named the suspect to encourage additional victims to come forward.“This name must be known because the aim is to enable potential victims to come forward,” Manteaux told reporters in the southeastern city of Grenoble.Investigators say Leveugle abused boys aged 13 to 17 between 1967 and 2022 while working as a freelance teacher and instructor in several countries, including Germany, Switzerland, Morocco, Algeria, Niger, the Philippines, India, Colombia and the French overseas territory of New Caledonia. His roles included teaching French and instructing speleology, the study of caves.Manteaux said the suspect referred to himself as a “gentleman boy-lover” and targeted teenage boys, whom he described as “ephebes,” an ancient Greek term for adolescent males. Describing his conduct, the prosecutor said Leveugle was “cultured and charismatic” and would “intellectually seduce” his victims.“There was never any violence,” said Serge Procedes, commander of the Grenoble investigation unit. “We are really talking about moral coercion.”The investigation began in 2022 after Leveugle’s nephew handed over USB drives containing writings compiled by the suspect. Prosecutors said the digital material consisted of 15 volumes detailing alleged sexual relations with minors and enabled authorities to identify 89 victims so far.Investigators said around 150 people have been interviewed, though only two victims have chosen to bring civil action. Many potential victims are mentioned only by first names or nicknames, complicating efforts to locate them decades later.The probe is described as a race against time due to the suspect’s age and the statute of limitations. “This judicial investigation will have to be closed in 2026,” Procedes said.Prosecutors also said Leveugle confessed during questioning to killing two family members decades ago. He admitted suffocating his terminally ill mother with a pillow in the 1970s and later suffocating his 92-year-old aunt in the 1990s.In his writings, the suspect said he had “killed two people,” Manteaux said, adding that a parallel investigation has been opened into those confessions.Authorities urged anyone who believes they may have been a victim or who has information to contact investigators.