VANNES, France — A former surgeon is set to stand trial in France on Monday for the alleged rape or sexual abuse of 299 victims, most of them children who were his patients, in what investigators and his own notebooks describe as a pattern of violence spanning over three decades.

Joël Le Scouarnec, now 74, will face hundreds of victims during a four-month trial in Vannes, Brittany. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, on top of 15 years he has been serving after being found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault of children.