France, March 4 -- French authorities began investigating the late Egyptian businessman and his brother Salah last year amid allegations of a vast system of sex trafficking and abuse on French soil.

"Every time I met Mohamed Al-Fayed, he tried to assault me," his former personal assistant Kristina Svensson told French police of her two years working at the Ritz.

Her testimony is all too familiar.

The alleged crimes of Mohamed Al-Fayed, who died in 2023 aged 94, first came to light in a BBC investigation in September 2024. In it, several young women who worked at his upmarket London department store Harrods accused him of rape and sexual assault.

Late Harrods owner Al-Fayed accused of rape: BBC

British police told AFP that 154 victims...