A representative of France's Catholic's bishops on Tuesday asked victims of sexual abuse by clergy for their forgiveness, after a report was published on the scale of abuse in the French church going back decades.

Monsignor Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, head of the French conference of bishops, said he and his fellow bishops wanted to express to victims their shame at the abuse revealed in the report.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Writing by Christian Lowe)