"Never, not once in my life, in my entire political career, have I interfered in a judicial matter," responds French Prime Minister François Bayrou, during a visit to the International Cheese and Wine Fair in Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne department, east of Paris), addressing the key witnesses heard by the parliamentary enquiry commission who contradicted the Prime Minister’s version regarding the Bétharram Catholic school abuse scandal. Claims of repeated sexual and physical violence at the boarding school have cast a shadow over the premiership of Francois Bayrou, who has been accused of knowing about some of the accusations as early as the 1990s as education minister and as a local official but not acting on them. Bayrou's wife was a religious studies teacher at the school and several of his children were educated there. COMPLETES VIDI39YG2NU_EN, VIDI39Z36ZP_EN IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES