Two weeks before the opening of the Olympic Games and the arrival of Emmanuel Macron, a Frenchman prevented from seeing his children since their kidnapping by their Japanese mother in 2018 started a hunger strike in Tokyo on Saturday.
“
I gave everything, lost my job, my house and my savings for three years.
I have 80 kilos left, and I will give them to the last ounce,
”Vincent Fichot told AFP, sitting on a floor mat at the entrance to a station in Tokyo, not far from the new Olympic stadium.
This 39-year-old Frenchman, who has been living in Japan for 15 years, assures us that he will not stop his action until he has recovered his children, a boy and a girl now aged 6 and 4.
Otherwise, he wants the French authorities to show him that they "
really want
" to defend his children and "
apply sanctions against Japan
", which he says violates its international commitments.
His wife used the pretext of domestic violence before the judges, but "
she retracted
" subsequently and today the Japanese justice "
has nothing to reproach me
", assures Vincent Fichot.
Shared custody of children in the event of separation does not exist legally in Japan, so parental abduction is a common practice and tolerated by local authorities.
There are no official figures, but associations estimate that 150,000 minors are victims each year in the archipelago.
French President Emmanuel Macron is due to travel to Tokyo on July 23 and 24, in particular to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
In 2019, during his last visit to Japan, he pledged to act in favor of French parents who no longer had access to their children in Japan, citing “
situations of distress which are absolutely unacceptable
”.
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