Do divorced fathers have fewer rights than mothers?

Entrenched on his crane, Serge Charnay moved the whole of France. Deprived of custody rights for his child by court order, this 42-year-old father demanded to recover his visitation rights. He subsequently federated around him associations for the defense of fathers and the affair had national repercussions since the Prime Minister himself intervened. Since then, operations have multiplied across France. These particular cases raise the recurring question of the rights of fathers after separation.

In France, nearly half of marriages end in divorce and a third of common-law unions end before ten years. These situations generally involve young children: the median age of the children is 9 years during a divorce and 5 years during a separation. What are they becoming? Two systems now organize the modalities of children’s residence : either the residence is usually fixed with one of the parents and the other is granted a right of visit and accommodation, or the children live alternately with both parents according to modalities established by the spouses or the judge. Today, the main residence still takes place mainly with the mother even if this trend is declining. “It concerned 73,5% of children in 2010 against more than 80% in 2003.”, indicates the Council of strategic analysis in a recent note. The affair of the father entrenched on his crane in Nantes seems symptomatic of these divorced dads deprived of their children or asking for more equal access. “There is not a week without deploring a desperate gesture, warns Fabrice Mejias *, president of SOS Papas, and with the example of Serge Charnay, in Nantes, mimicry is to be feared. We are on a powder keg, ready to explode. It is urgent, the legislator must act, not propose hackneyed recipes. ” However, these fathers launched in punch operations, invested in associations, shouting their despair head-to-head, are they representative of separated men?

Militant fathers: a minority

“A majority of fathers do not claim the main or alternate residence, including in divorce or amicable separations. », Says Professor Claude Lienhard, lawyer and President of the National Institute for Victim Assistance and Mediation (INAVEM). “In 90% of cases where the main residence is granted to the mother, both parents agree with the judge’s decision,” confirms Véronique Léger, National Secretary of the Union Syndicale des Magistrates and former judge in family affairs. There are maybe 10 to 15% of the cases for which there is a conflict. ” If all fathers longed for custody of their children, it would therefore become difficult to explain the increase and increased precariousness of single mothers. Chances of the news, when Serge Charnay shouts his pain from the top of his crane, Christine Kelly, former journalist, submits a report in the form of a cry of alarm on single-parent families, 85% of which are in fact single mothers . “Alongside a small fringe of fathers who claim their rights, there are many single women in difficulty, who are struggling to obtain the payment of child support”, recalls Véronique Léger for her part.

The consequences of separations on the father-child bond

However, these absent fathers are not fathers who have voluntarily resigned. If the attribution of custody to the mother does not necessarily arouse disagreement, it can be experienced as “the entry into an“ interim ”paternity, insufficiently anchored in everyday life. As the CAS noted. The impact of marital breakdown remains greater on the frequency and quality of father-child relationships than on those of mother-child relationships. 40% of children under 25 from a broken union only rarely or never see their father, compared with 15% their mother. Dads in withdrawal who therefore end up becoming absent. For Maitre Lienhard, everything is decided at the time of the procedure. ” Often fathers do not use their rights simply because they do not know about them. This is why we are working with families on a comprehensive parenting project regardless of the type of childcare. In principle, the separation of parents has no effect on the exercise of parental authority. This is contested by the SOS Papa association, according to which the father too often becomes a “sub-parent”. Fathers’ associations, in an egalitarian approach, therefore demand that alternate residence be offered by default, as a basic type of childcare. The only solution according to these activists so that fathers are no longer cheated.

To discover in video: conditions to be met to set up joint custody

Alternate residency, the eternal debate

The alternating residence as a system of care a priori? A request that does not necessarily arouse the support of experts in the field, such as Roland Coutanceau **, psychiatrist, expert in the courts: “Among the parents who strongly demand alternate residence, we see in particular mothers assessed as pathological and fathers who consider that justice privileges the mother, which is not statistically false, and that it is unfair. Corn what does this search for a pseudo-equality mean ? Do fathers who claim it do so for the sake of their child’s well-being or for themselves? Does it make sense to apply alternate residence mechanically? “” Militant fathers are generally in a totally egalitarian conception of roles, confirms Elodie Mulon, a lawyer who often defends them. I also think that associations do a lot of harm because they are too excessive. ” Roland Coutanceau recalls the three movements that have punctuated the – short – history of the alternate residence. First, idealization, this organization was then seen as a panacea. Then a flashback, spurred on by early childhood specialists who warned about its deleterious effects for the little ones. And today, an application on a case-by-case basis depending on the age of the child, the geographical criterion and the relations between the ex-spouses. “There are certainly still somewhat dogmatic judges who are very pro-mothers, but things have nevertheless evolved a lot,” notes Me Elodie Mulon. When the children are not babies, the right of shelter is easily extended for the father. There is no general pillorying of men. The majority of them do not apply for joint residence and when it is refused, it is not necessarily a decision against the father. What is true, on the other hand, is that a father needs more energy to take his place in the child’s life, he must prove himself ”.

Fathers against mothers, how to get out of this binary and sterile confrontation? The constantly increasing recourse to family mediation seems to be a solution. “Except in cases of violence or psychological control, mediation helps defuse conflicts,” says Véronique Léger. And parties don’t need a court ruling to appeal. “

* The Figaro

** Author of the collective work “Violence et famille” at Dunod