Court name: Cour de cassation
State: France
Date of decision:

The case concerns the challenge before the French Court of Cassation (Cour de Cassation) of a refusal by the Court of Appeal of Rennes to register on the French civil registries the birth certificate of a child who was born in Canada as a result of a surrogacy procedure, and the recognition of parental relationship between that child and one of the applicants. In this case, both parents were a couple of men. The Cour de Cassation ruled in favour of the applicants and ordered the registration of the child's birth certificate on the French registries, designating both parents as fathers of the child.

Court name: Nantes Administrative Court of Appeal
State: France
Date of decision:

The applicant was born in Taiwan, and entered France as an unaccompanied minor on a "borrowed" passport. Her application for stateless status was rejected, as she did not make sufficient effort to obtain Chinese nationality. OFPRA also relied on the applicant having had a "double identity" in France and therefore being untrustworthy, and on the fact that France does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state. 

Court name: Marseille Administrative Court
State: France
Date of decision:

Mr. B and Mrs. C, a married couple who got recognised as stateless by OFPRA, did not mention they had a daughter (Miss A, the applicant) when applying for statelessness status. When Miss A also applied for a statelessness status, and provided a birth certificate proving that Mr. B and Mrs. C are her parents, OFPRA denied her application, partially because they doubted the parental relations, and partially because they considered that she did not take the necessary steps to get recognised as a national by either Italy or the successor states of Yugoslavia - where her parents are from. The Court ruled that OFPRA based its decision on an error of assessment, and ordered it to grant Miss A the statelessness status. 

Court name: European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section)
State: France
Date of decision:

The case concerns the refusal to grant legal recognition in France to parent-child relationships that had been legally established in the United States between children born as a result of surrogacy treatment and the couples who had had the treatment. The Court found that totally prohibiting the establishment of a relationship between a father and his biological children born following surrogacy arrangements abroad was a violation of Article 8 concerning the children’s right to respect for their private life, under Article 8.