Legal Question in Family Law in France
France: adoption, out-of-wedlock child custody
An unmarried couple is living in the UK (she is French, he American). They are unmarried; she is pregnant with another man's child. Can the first man legally adopt this child after birth? If he does, what rights does he have if the couple should ever get married then divorced and is this different from his rights if they never marry? What rights does the French father have in terms of where the child lives?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: France: adoption, out-of-wedlock child custody
You are making this problem more complicated than it is. As far as the child is concerned there exists only its mother and its biological father.
The person with whom the mother is living who is not the biological father of the child has neither rights nor duties concerning a child that is not his. He could only legally adopt that child with the consent of the biological father, if then.
Whether the biological father has rights as to where the child lives will depend upon the jurisdictiion in which the child resides when the father raises the issue and how vigorously he pursues it. Normally a court will award custody of a very young child to the mother unless she is unfit because of drug use, alcoholism, mental disease, etc.
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