Top French court: Children of surrogates not citizens

PARIS — France's top court, in a ruling that affirmed the nation's ban on surrogacy, refused Wednesday to allow French citizenship for 10-year-old twin girls born to a surrogate mother in the United States.

In a case straddling international legal rights and bioethics, the Court of Cassation ruled a California county went too far by ruling that a French couple are legally the twins' parents.

The ruling exposes the legal limbo that many would-be parents find themselves in because of inconsistencies on surrogacy between countries such as the United States, which legally recognizes it, and France, which does not.

Because Sylvie Mennesson was unable to bear children, she and her husband, Dominique, turned to a surrogate mother with his sperm and a donor's egg. The surrogate mother gave birth to the twins in California in 2000, and the girls have U.S. citizenship. Under California's surrogacy-rights laws, San Diego County said the Mennessons were the girl's legal parents.

Wednesday's ruling follows a lower court's order that stripped the twins from France's civil registry. Being listed on the civil registry is a requirement for obtaining documents, including identity cards and passports.

French state attorneys had asked the high court to grant the couple's effort to have the twins kept in the civil registry, arguing such a move was in the "superior interest" of the children — and as such should take precedence.

But the high court rejected that, saying it would conflict with French law.

The court, in its judgment, said the cancellation of such a transfer from the U.S. to French civil registry "does not infringe upon the right and respect of the private and familial life of these children."

While the court ruled that the girls cannot be listed in France's civil registry, it also said that nothing "prevents them from living with the Mennessons in France."