The bill aimed at facilitating the withdrawal of parental authority in the event of violence against a child or the other parent arrives in the Senate, after having been adopted in the Assembly. On this occasion, franceinfo collected testimonies from victims.
“He no longer exists in their lives. He will still be the biological father but they no longer have any constraints with him.” On January 27, the grandparents of the children of Julie Douib, murdered by her ex-companion four years ago, welcomed the verdict of the Corsica-du-Sud Assize Court of Appeal with relief. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Bruno Garcia-Cruciani was also the subject of a “total withdrawal of parental authority” over his two sons aged 12 and 14. It’s a “decision as important as the prison sentence”believes Lucien Douib, who welcomes the adoption in the National Assembly, in early February, of a bill aimed at facilitating the withdrawal of parental authority in the context of domestic violence.
Carried by the socialist deputy Isabelle Santiago, this text, which must be examined in the Senate from Tuesday March 21, forces the judges to justify their decision if they do not withdraw parental authority in the event of conviction for a crime on the other parent – feminicides are particularly targeted – or for incestuous assault or rape on the child. The bill also extends a measure passed at the end of 2019: the suspension of the exercise of parental authority as soon as the prosecution for a crime against the other parent. Currently limited to six months, renewable once, the text voted in the Assembly proposes that it lasts all the time of the procedure until a possible trial. A provision censored by the Senate Law Commission.
Parental authority exercised from prison
Julie Douib’s parents were unable to benefit from this suspension and had to deal with their daughter’s killer for several months to take care of their grandchildren. Since his pre-trial detention, the indicted “opposed everything”.
“We couldn’t have them followed up psychologically for the first nine months because their father refused.”
Lucien Douib, father of Julie Douibat franceinfo
After a year and a half, they manage to obtain full delegation of parental authority. “With that, we were making a little more progress, but we still had to keep him regularly informed of the lives of his sons”, says Lucien Douib. A situation that lasted until the final conviction on appeal.
Paul, he still lives under the parental authority of his father, who killed his mother in March 2013. Aged 6 at the time of the events, he was placed with his paternal grandparents. A decision that his lawyer, Corinne Gauthier still deplores today: they “have taken up the cause of their son”. Sentenced to 23 years in prison, the latter received visits from his son, now 16, in prison. “That’s pretty much all I have left of my parents”had entrusted the teenager to the magazine “Complément d’Enquête”, broadcast on France 2 in October 2021.
According to Paul’s lawyer, his father does not hesitate to“abuse” of his parental authority, as when he objected to the renewal of his passport in view of a trip abroad with the maternal family. Or when he asks the guardianship judge to find out “where is the compensation of his son”who received “damages” after the trial. “If he had his son’s interests at heart, he would not have killed his mother”fulminates Corinne Gauthier, regretting that at the time, the question of parental authority did not arise.
A threat hanging over the child
It is only since 2014, and the law for real equality between women and men, that the courts have to rule on the total or partial withdrawal of parental authority in the event of a conviction of a parent for certain crimes and misdemeanors.
A provision escaped by Steffy’s father, sentenced in 2011 to three years in prison, one of which was suspended, for sexual assault on his daughter, then 14 years old. Despite a ban on approaching him, he retained his parental authority, according to the judgment that franceinfo was able to consult. “My mother had to deal with it until I was 18 for everyday decisionsstorms the young woman of 26 years. For my father, parental authority was a real pleasure, he used and abused it.
Her mother ends her life in 2019 and history repeats itself with her 10-year-old little brother, Carl. The little boy denounces acts of sexual assault on the part of his father and files a complaint in September 2020. If his big sister obtains custody, the father retains his parental authority, despite his criminal record. “My father never ceased to be a problemsays Steffy. When it was necessary to send him to college, redo his identity papers, have him operated on…”
“Carl saw his almighty dad for two years. He had every right to sweat him over everything, even if he didn’t have his custody.”
The little boy, “terrorized” the idea that his father will one day recover his rights, committed suicide at the age of 12. “Parental authority is sacred. We defend the best interests of the child but we put the rights of the parents before”denounces his sister, according to which Carl’s complaint is to date neither investigated nor classified.
70% of complaints closed without follow-up
Even if proceedings are initiated, the suspension of parental authority is not currently provided for sexual assault or incestuous rape of a minor. Isabelle Santiago’s bill precisely plans to extend this mechanism to this type of violence. Despite the indictment of her father for rape, Alycia had to remain under his parental authority. The young woman filed a complaint the year of her 16th birthday, in 2020, four years after the fact. “It came back to me in flashback following an argument with him”, she says. Alycia recalls one summer, after her sick mother passed away: “I was barely 12 years old, my father raped me several times.”
The latter disputes. The teenager goes to live with her maternal grandparents but her father has to be consulted to “high school enrollment” or for “wisdom tooth surgery”. Finally, the judge orders a dismissal, for lack of “sufficient charges”. “We appealed to the investigating chamber but the father died before the hearingexplains Alycia’s lawyer, Mathilde Livenais. She will never have a court decision.”
For another of his clients, the first reports did not lead to any prosecution. This is the main limit of this bill: 70% of complaints for sexual assault on minors are dismissed, as recalled by the Ciivise in its report on incest submitted in September.
Priscilla is 5 years old when she denounces acts of rape on the part of her father. Despite two worrying pieces of information issued by the social services, the investigation is closed without further action. The girl returns to live with her parents. “At 9, she stops talking about these abuses and becomes enuretic [atteinte d’incontinence urinaire]“points out Mathilde Livenais.
When Priscilla gives birth to a baby girl at the age of 15, legal proceedings are finally brought against her father. A DNA test at the birth of the child reveals that he is the parent. When he was tried and sentenced to 17 years in prison in October 2022, Priscilla was already of age. The parental authority of the father is withdrawn only for the last of the siblings, still a minor. “It should have been done earlier because he stole my childhood and my virginity in the process”rebels Priscilla, bitter towards justice.
A “perimeter of protection” limited to certain cases
“A child who reveals violence and who is not immediately protected no longer believes in the adult world”, supports the children’s judge Edouard Durand, president of the Ciivise. Calling out “consolidate criminal investigations to reduce the classification without follow-up”, the magistrate regrets that the socialist bill did not go further. He laments a “protective perimeter” limit. Isabelle Santiago’s text proposes that the suspension of parental authority be extended to prosecution for domestic violence. But they must have resulted in total incapacity for work (ITT) for more than eight days and the child must have witnessed the facts. “Whether the child was in the room or not, domestic violence always reveals extreme danger in parenthood”, emphasizes Edouard Durand. Again, the Senate Law Commission chose to challenge this provision.
“There is a difficulty in thinking that what happens in conjugality and in parenthood, it is not dissociable. It is one and the same thing.”
Edouard Durand, magistrate specializing in child protectionat franceinfo
For Marie*, the violence began precisely after the return from maternity. “The day I got home, my husband thought I was crying too much. He grabbed me by the hair, pushed me to the ground and emptied a bottle of water completely on my head”, she reports. After her complaint filed in 2022, the young mother received a protection order, but the father’s parental authority was maintained, in the absence of prosecution.
“Exercising this joint parental authority is a way for my ex-husband to perpetuate the terror and controlMary breathes. He harasses me to demand to be present at all medical appointments. Before the separation, however, he had never shown any interest in coming with us during visits to the pediatrician.
“The spirit of the bill is to protect the child as quickly as possible. But that cannot be from the complaintargues MP Isabelle Santiago. This text does not claim to respond to all violence against children or women in a systemic way. The elected official is already thinking about the following: to vote, within the framework of the Social Security financing bill, the management by Medicare of the psychotrauma of orphans of feminicides. It’s necessary “graduate things to give a sign to society: we do not touch children.”
*Name has been changed