TESTIMONY
"For a month, a month and a half, I'm not going to see my daughter." Laurent, father of a three-year-old daughter, is upset. The confinement put in place to fight the spread of the coronavirus epidemic prevented him from seeing his daughter. He testified at the microphone of Europe 1, like other parents, on the way in which confinement has redistributed the cards of shared custody of children within divorced couples.
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"It's absurd"
Laurent's ex-wife, for example, refused to entrust her three-year-old daughter to her for the next few days and weeks. So inevitably, the dad "finds that disgusting". Not to entrust one or more children to one of the parents during his days of care is an offense but the police are overwhelmed. Between the confinement to be respected and the understaffing, Laurent's complaint may not succeed immediately.
"His mother justifies this choice by considering that his mother's right is more important than my father's right", still annoys Laurent, who will not see his little girl for a month or more. "She believes that she alone is able to say if my daughter is safer with her mother or with her father, it's absurd," he enraged.
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Video calling as an alternative
Fortunately, some couples find common ground. Fabrice, for example, asked his ex-wife to keep his three children for the duration of the confinement because he prefers "not to make them take the risk of transport". A heartbreak for this dad because he misses his children "for 10 days" and they will still miss him "for 15 days or more". But he thinks "their safety above all, it must prevail over the lack that I feel".
To make up for the absence, Touria and her ex-husband have introduced a new type of access rights for their two daughters. The father "comes to see them at the bottom of the house and he calls them on video every day". But, as for Fabrice, concerning the displacements, the two ex-companions chose not to make take small risks. Touria's ex-husband prefers to wait and take his pain patiently so that he can kiss his two daughters without restraint in a few weeks.