16 medical or odontology students were sanctioned by the University of Tours for acts of hazing, the establishment announced this Thursday, April 2, 2026. The sanctions range from 6 months to 2 years of exclusion.
One year after the action plan, the first consequences. This Thursday, April 2, 2026, the University of Tours announced in a press release that it had sanctioned 16 students following courses in medicine or odontology. They are accused of “acts of hazing and damage to the reputation of the establishment“.
The disciplinary section of the university’s academic council says it has instructed to “multiple files“, and met on February 16 and 17. 16 students were sanctioned, out of a total of 20 reports made a year earlier. Seven were excluded from the establishment for two years, with a more or less long period of reprieve (from 8 to 21 months). Eight others receive a one-year suspension with partial or full suspension.
Sanctions lower than what some might have expected, with definitive exclusion from all French universities being possible, depending on the seriousness of the facts. “The sanctions imposed recognize this seriousness while leaving room for individual and collective awareness.“, explains Sabine Barrat, president of the disciplinary section. Who promises that the priority of the institution “remains the protection of the university community and the lasting prevention of such behavior“.
“These sanctions illustrate our determination to fight against any form of violence or degrading behavior“, agrees Philippe Roingeard, president of the University of Tours. Who wishes to create an establishment”a place of emancipation, respect and demands“.
Values that many students, and especially female students, have not necessarily observed during their visit to the University of Tours in recent years. The case of Nicolas W., a medical student who passed through Tours and was convicted of sexual assault on two of his former classmates, had already stirred public opinion.
The revelation of various facts of hazing and sexual assault at medical student parties, in 2024, sadly completed the picture. At the end of September 2024, a report was sent to the Tours prosecutor after the deployment, during a student evening, of a sexist banner. A woman appeared there completely naked, unconscious and immersed in a cocktail glass. Above her, a penis leaks drops of semen, and a caption indicated “GHBitesâ€in reference to GHB, “the rapist drug”. A case which fell in the middle of the Mazan rape trial.
The General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research (IGESR), in charge of this file, submitted a report, in March 2025, to the presidency of the university. The text reported several acts characterized as hazing, humiliating or degrading acts, but also non-consensual sexual relations, committed between October 2023 and September 2024. The incriminated banner “is ultimately only the emerging part of a systemic problem of sexist and sexual violence suffered by students at the faculty of medicine“, Philippe Roingeard already regretted at the time.
The latter reported the holding of “challenges surrounding excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages“during these famous student evenings. Challenges that could”dégénérer“until”organizers [aillent] to the point of imposing the practice of oral sex, therefore acts that the courts could qualify as rape“.
A year ago, the university itself noted this, “no control system was planned to ensure the commitment made by the managers of labeled associations“. On March 24, 2025, the establishment unveiled an action plan in 27 measures, incorporating all of the IGESR recommendations.
These measures “have all been deployed or carried out“over the past year, according to the university press release on April 2, 2026. The establishment highlights in particular”immediate referral to the disciplinary section“, “modification of the internal regulations“, “the adoption of a charter to combat hazing and sexist and sexual violence“, or even “the creation of a student listening unit“. Training “raising awareness about violence” was also created, and is compulsory for medical and odontology students.
A criminal investigation is still underway, since March 2025, for acts of hazing, sexual assault and aggravated violence.
