Pave: Mommy Dearest

Le jour 177 de Sarko

Bienvenu en France ! You're going to love it here. Mom said so.

JUDGES BACK TWO BRITISH BOYS
WHO REFUSE TO LIVE IN FRANCE

November 8, 2007 (Times Online) - Two boys who hated living in France so much they asserted their Britishness and refused to return to live there with their mother have been granted their wish by senior judges.

In a highly unusual case, Lord Justice Thorpe, one of three judges sitting at the Court of Appeal in London, said that the desire of the brothers, aged 11 and 16, to live in England deserved to be respected and overrode even the wishes of their own mother.

Describing the case as "not just exceptional but very exceptional", the judge said that the boys’ French mother had taken them back to her homeland with her in 2005 after her marriage to their British father had broken down. But the two boys, who at the time spoke no French, failed to settle into their new lives in a market town in southern France and, after a holiday in England with their father in July this year, refused to return.

... In the Court of Appeal, the mother’s barrister, Stephen Bellamy, QC, argued that the judge’s decision was “wrong in principle” and that his client’s opinion as to what was best for her sons should hold sway. He said that, as the boys were "habitually resident" in France, the Hague Convention – which enshrines the international ban on child abduction – demanded that they be returned for their future to be decided by a French court.

Refusing the mother permission to appeal, Lord Justice Thorpe, sitting with Lady Justice Arden and Lord Justice Lawrence Collins, said that he had "rarely, if ever, heard such strongly expressed views by children of this age".

... The mother had argued that her sons’ life in France was happy and settled and their views were “not a matter which should be given great weight”.

Tout le monde heureux ici. Bouclez-la !

PFFT (What is this?): Wonderful France, not to all tastes 3 | Rayonnement français 0