TESTIMONY. “We were asked to pay for our father’s nursing home who murdered our mother”


Their “father” killed their mother before their eyes on December 11, 1982. Thirty-six years later, Françoise and Laurence Le Goff are fighting to avoid a double penalty for children from femicides.

Françoise and Laurence tried to “forget”. Forget the two gunshots which, in a context of separation, deprived them of their mother at 13 and 10 years old. But the past came back like a boomerang one day in November 2018, shortly before the anniversary of the murder. “While we thought our scars had healed, we received a letter from the department asking that we finance the old days of a parent who we did not know was still alive, in the name of the food obligation!” , still storm the two sisters.

Article 205 of the Civil Code provides for this duty of assistance towards one’s parents… But what kind of “parent”? Françoise, 52, and Laurence, 49, are shocked to discover that, to be exempted from this obligation, they must plead their case before a judge, as guilty. Often very young during tragedies, children are the forgotten victims. With their association Enfants become grands (enfantsdevenusgrands.org, on Facebook and Twitter), they alert Marlène Schiappa during the Grenelle of domestic violence, to change the law.

“We do not want to be approached years later by the public authorities who do not consult the criminal record”

“In 2020, we won the fight for the exemption in principle from the obligation of maintenance for all children of feminicide, welcomes Françoise. But the creation of a file which lists these fathers making their children orphans is essential. We don’t want to be approached years later by the public authorities who do not consult the criminal record!” Released themselves from the obligation after a media storm, the two sisters could have considered themselves quits. But the drama awakened another wound. That of the cruel separation from their siblings just after the crime.

“Our brother, Yannick, 15 years old at the time, Laurence and I, were placed with three different maternal uncles, hundreds of kilometers from each other. Overnight, we had our mother in the cemetery, our father in prison, no more brother or sister”, underlines Laurence, “the little one”, who prayed to see them again. “They didn’t want me to talk to them, thinking they were protecting me,” she still remembers.

“We obtained a suspension of parental rights upon arrest, even after ‘simple’ domestic violence”

It is she who, at the age of 20, undertakes to reconnect with her siblings of strangers. Françoise, mistreated by her guardian uncle, fights for common sense care: “We place the children on the mother’s side as a matter of principle. However, we did not know these uncles, on the contrary on the father’s side. He may even be in the interest of the child that he be placed outside the family. We must stop with the preservation of blood ties at all costs! It was also in the name of these blood ties that their father had retained parental authority.

Until then, the murderous father could oppose the child seeing a shrink, demand visitation rights in prison, take the big decisions in the life of his children. With other associations, they changed this law in 2020. “We obtained a suspension of parental rights upon arrest, even after “simple” domestic violence. Because we know the trauma it is, we lived it, “says Françoise. The suspension is only valid for six months, which they consider insufficient. “

“The child, like the adult, must remain free to maintain ties”

The child does not have to see his fate in suspense, linked to an assassin or a brute”, continues Françoise, who wants the measure to be final. However, far from them the idea of ​​​​erasing the father at all “The child, like the adult, must remain free to maintain ties. At certain times of life, we can feel the need, to build ourselves, to see our parent again. Myself, notes Françoise, I did it when she left prison. To understand… that there was nothing to understand.” Sentenced to twelve years in prison, the man whose state wanted his children to finance his old age had neither remorse nor regret and felt he had “served his sentence”.

Today listening to other children who have been hurt through their association, Françoise and Laurence have rediscovered their bond. They meet each winter in Angers, each summer in Cannes, where they grew up separated. They founded a real family, with three children each, as a repair of the past. Their mom could be proud.



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