Child custody and international relocation under French law

The word “custody” does not exist in French family law, and that is the first thing an English-speaking parent needs to understand. No parent wins the children and no parent loses them. Both keep parental authority, jointly, whatever happens to the marriage. What the judge decides is where the children live, how much time they spend with each parent, and who contributes what to their upkeep. The vocabulary matters because it shapes how French courts think, and how a case has to be presented to them.

Olivia Uzan has represented parents in French courts for more than twenty years, in cases where the other parent lived across town and in cases where the other parent lived across the Atlantic. She is also admitted in California, which matters more than it might seem when a child’s life is divided between two countries.

Parental authority, residence and contact

In France, parental authority belongs to both parents from birth and survives separation. Decisions about school, health, religion and travel are taken together. A parent who moves out does not lose the right to be consulted, and a parent who has the children most of the time does not acquire the right to decide alone.

What separation changes is the children’s residence. It can be fixed with one parent, the other having contact and overnight stays, typically alternate weekends and half the school holidays, or it can alternate between the two homes, week on, week off, or on some other rhythm. Alternating residence was rare in France twenty years ago. It has grown steadily since and now concerns roughly one separated family in eight, more among school-age children, though it remains less often ordered than requested. Courts grant it where the parents live close enough, can communicate, and where the child’s routine allows it. The idea that a father is as capable of caring for his children as a mother is no longer contested in French courtrooms, and cases are decided on practical grounds rather than on assumptions about who does what.

The judge decides according to the child’s interest. The factors that carry weight are the arrangement the parents had before the separation, each parent’s ability to respect the other’s role, the child’s age and needs, and the distance between the two homes. A child who is capable of forming a view may ask to be heard, and when the request comes from the child, the judge cannot refuse it except in narrow circumstances. The judge listens without being bound.

Child support follows from the arrangement: a monthly contribution from one parent to the other, assessed on their respective resources and on the time the children spend in each home.

Moving abroad with the children

This is where international families run into difficulty, and where the rules are least forgiving.

A parent is free to move. What a parent is not free to do is take the children along without the other parent’s agreement. The Civil Code requires a parent whose move would affect the arrangements for the children to inform the other parent in advance, and, if they disagree, either may bring the matter before the family judge. The judge cannot prevent the move itself. What the judge can do is decide, on the basis of the child’s interest alone, whether the children go too, or whether their residence is transferred to the parent who stays, and how contact with the other parent will be maintained. A parent who moves abroad with the children regardless of the other’s opposition risks criminal prosecution in France, with heavier penalties when the children are taken out of the country.

There is a second consequence, and it is the one that international families most often underestimate. Leaving the country with the children without the other parent’s consent is a wrongful removal under the Hague Convention on international child abduction, to which both France and the United States are parties. The courts of the country where the children have been taken do not examine who is the better parent. Their task is to send the children back so that the question can be decided where the children were living. Return is the rule. The exceptions, chiefly a grave risk of harm to the child, are read narrowly and the threshold is high. The Convention aims for a decision within six weeks; in practice, proceedings take several months, and that is several months during which the parent who left has to explain to a foreign court why they did.

A relocation case therefore has to be prepared, not improvised. The parent who wants to move has to show that the move is genuine and considered, that the children’s relationship with the other parent will be preserved, and that the practical arrangements, schedule, travel, cost, are realistic. A move imposed by an employer is received differently from a move chosen for personal reasons. The parent who opposes it has to show what the children would lose, concretely, and propose an alternative. French judges take these cases seriously and decide them on the file. A vague plan, on either side, loses.

Which court decides

Questions about children are generally decided by the courts of the country where the children habitually live, not by the courts that pronounced the divorce and not by the courts of the parents’ nationality. A French judgment on residence and contact is recognised throughout the European Union and, in most cases, in the United States. An American custody order is recognised in France through a specific procedure, and can then be enforced here.

For families who move regularly this has a practical consequence: the court that decided last year may no longer be the right court this year. Knowing where a case can be brought, and where it cannot, is often the first question.

Working with the other parent

Most cases involving children are settled, and French courts encourage it. An agreement between the parents on residence, contact and support can be submitted to the judge and given the force of a judgment. Mediation is available and sometimes required before a hearing.

Olivia Uzan approaches these cases with the conviction, formed over many years, that a settlement that both parents can live with serves the children better than a judgment that one of them will spend the next decade contesting. Where settlement is not possible, she litigates.