Hélène Conway-Mouret , former Minister for Foreign Affairs, responsible for French nationals living abroad, Vice-President of the Senate, senator representing French nationals living outside France
“This exceptional period in which our country has lived since March 17 has shaken millions of families in their daily organization. This is particularly the case for separated parents and their children. All of them had to adapt to a long trying period of confinement, then to a period of gradual deconfinement, still filled with uncertainty.
Fortunately, this new context has led to constructive dialogues between parents. Many of them have been able to adapt, in the interests of children, the rules provided for in divorce agreements. I took a position at the start of confinement to remind that parents could agree amicably on new methods of exercising parental authority. I thus called for a sympathetic widening of the right of access when the conditions were met: total confinement and availability of the parent beneficiary of this right, satisfactory reception conditions for the children and domiciliation at a reasonable distance by car from the other parent. In response, the government also called on parents to establish the most child-friendly living environment .
I received numerous testimonies from parents who, during this period, legitimately aspired to see more of their children and I intervened to resolve certain situations, in particular for binational couples.
These benevolent exchanges between parents must lead to post-confinement compensation measures. I am of course thinking of the coming summer holidays. It is essential that children who have been deprived of one parent try to make up for lost time.
Need I remind you that children have the right to maintain balanced relationships with both parents, in accordance with the International Convention on the Rights of the Child?
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If the parents have communication difficulties, I invite them to call on family mediators. In this still anxious period, contacting the family mediator may represent the only solution to soothe conflict situations and restore dialogue. These appointments are billed according to a scale which takes account of the parents' resources. Naturally, serious cases (violence, for example) do not fall within its competence, but that of the specialized associations as well as of the justice system. I would also like to remind you that the Defender of Rights' children's rights unit does not organize family mediations.
In general, separated parents can paradoxically take advantage of this exceptional period to invent new forms of communication and organization. In Mandarin, two ideograms are used to write the word conflict : one means danger , the other opportunity . I believe in the virtues of dialogue organized under the aegis of recognized professionals trained in non-contentious dispute resolution.
The period that we have just lived brings us back to what is most intimate with us and pushes us to put into perspective today what, yesterday, seemed insurmountable to us. To show humanity when we are parents is to forget the quarrels of the past to better prepare, together, the future of our children. "