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The two French children found abandoned last week in southern Portugal by their mother and her partner will soon be heading to France, according to a statement from the Setúbal District Court to which Euronews had access.
According to the document, French authorities have decided, under the terms of judicial co-operation, to place Zacharie and Barthélemy in the care of the social services in the Alsace region while they assess the suitability of other family members, particularly their father, to look after them.
Following this decision, the Portuguese court decided to return the children to their state of habitual residence, leaving it up to the French authorities to decide what to do with them next.
Marine Rousseau, 41, and Marc Ballabriga, 55, are in pre-trial detention, indicted for various offences, following the abandonment of the two minors, which has been making headlines since last week.
The French couple left the two boys, aged four and five, blindfolded in a bush next to the road linking Alcácer do Sal to Comporta, telling them they were playing a “game” in which they were supposed to find a hidden toy.
Before leaving for Spain with her two young children to meet her new partner, Marine had left her eldest son, a teenager, alone at home, which led the children’s father to accuse her of kidnapping and abandonment. The couple then crossed the border into Portugal and abandoned the two boys.
Zacharie and Barthélemy were found by baker Alexandre Quintas, who was informally promoted to “national hero” after saving the children. Quintas took the two brothers home, where they played with his children, and informed the police. He also put officers in touch with a French citizen who was able to translate the boys’ testimonies.
Father hopes to pick up children
The fugitive couple were arrested in a café in Fátima, more than 200 kilometres from where the two boys were abandoned. On arrival at the Setúbal court on Friday, the couple appeared to have staged a scene of insanity, with the woman singing opera and the man shouting “je vous aime” (“I love you”) in the direction of the police and journalists.
Meanwhile, the boy’s father, who does not want to be identified, wrote an open letter to Ici Alsace TV in which he says he “thinks about them every second since the Colmar police station notified him of the children’s disappearance” and that “it’s only a matter of days before I can get them back.”
The father has limited and supervised visiting rights over the children, which may have prompted the assessment into his suitability to take the children.
This limited visitation right is decided by family judges in certain specific circumstances, such as violence, acute family conflict or progressive resumption of contact after a prolonged break in ties between a child and a parent.