French court recognises incestuous couple as parents

A brother and sister who unwittingly had a child from an incestuous relationship after being raised in separate foster homes have won a legal fight to be recognised as parents in France.

The siblings were brought up in homes in the north eastern Aube region and met by chance in 2006 without realising they had the same mother.

But having started a relationship, they only discovered they were half-brother and sister when they applied for a birth certificate for their daughter Océane in 2009.

According to IB Times, the couple, named as 53-year-old Herve and 46-year-old Rose-Marie, split before Océane’s birth and Rose-Marie raised the child.

Laws in France say only one parent can be officially recognised on the birth certificate of a child born of an incestuous relationship.

In 2016 a Cherbourg judge ruled that Rose-Marie’s mother’s name should be removed from the document since the ‘child’s incestuous origin should not be known to everyone.’

The siblings were raised in homes in the north eastern Aube region (file picture) and met by chance in 2006 without realising they had the same mother

The mother appealed this and a separate court in Caen overturned that judgement in June this year, ruling that both lines of descent could be shown on the certificate.

‘Eight-year-old Océane has lived with her mother since birth. The father does not contest the mother’s parenthood and he does not appear to have kept any particularly close relationship with his daughter,’ said the judges, according to The Local.

‘Annulling the mother’s official recognition as a parent would have damaging consequences for the child,’ they added.