She hopes to emerge from the “nightmare” that began at the end of 2017, with the paternal grandparents being summoned to obtain visitation and accommodation rights for their daughter, born a few months earlier. Years of proceedings that resulted, five years later, in a judgment granting custody of the child on the first Sunday of each month, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. “They decided that just because the grandparents were violent with their son, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will be violent with their granddaughter,” explains Amandine, 38, who lives in Toulon (Var) and has decided to break the silence with her husband. “We appealed but the attorney general said that it would be detrimental to cut our daughter off from her father’s family history,” she continues. The hearing is due to be held on Thursday before the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal.
A few days before this new deadline, Amandine confides in 20 Minutes feeling at an “impasse” with her in-laws. She describes the “first threats” after the announcement of the arrival of this granddaughter, the relations which “were already not good”, and made her stay away from her in-laws for a long time, which “deteriorated” to the point of an “argument where it came to blows”. That same evening, her husband confided in her about “the violence and incestuous gestures during her childhood”. So, when the judgment was handed down at the end of 2022, they “refused to expose” their child “to the danger of these people”.
Numerous testimonies from threatened parents
“The grandparents have filed a complaint about ten times for failure to appear,” continues Amandine. “My daughter has developed anxiety, night terrors. She has to say on the intercom that she doesn’t want to see them.” Now, to avoid these scenes, the family leaves their home on the Sunday in question. “Because of the justice system, we all find ourselves in danger, we are threatened with being put in prison and our children being placed in custody,” Amandine complains indignantly after the various summonses to the police station.
“The psychiatrists and psychologists who follow us do not understand how the best interests of the child as provided for by law can be flouted in this way,” she adds.
Testimonies like this are received by the La Dérive 371-4 helpline “almost daily,” says Lucas Espitalier, a volunteer with the association, which has been defending parents who are being sued or threatened with legal action by their own parents for about ten years. “While Article 371-4 of the Civil Code clearly establishes a child’s right to maintain relationships, in practice it is a right of the grandparents that has been established,” notes the association.
The Epinal image of grandparents spoiling their children
She points out the “empty shells” of the law and campaigns for it to evolve. In particular on the burden of proof when there is a history of violence: “It is then up to the parents to prove that the relationship is contrary to the child’s interests. This proof is all the more difficult to provide since it often corresponds to old facts of physical or psychological violence.” According to the association, the burden of proof should be reversed.
“We all have images of the good grandfather, the good grandmother, who makes cakes, spoils the little one, unfortunately this is not always a reality, states Lucas Espitalier. Some situations are even dramatic. It is still a taboo subject, we must talk about it.” “Each case is unique but we find a common core made up of child abuse,” he adds. In 2021, the association counted 1,649 first instance decisions relating to requests from grandparents. From its feedback, it notes that “from one court to another, a case can be judged differently.”