Vincent Fichot, 39, went on a hunger strike in Tokyo on Saturday.

He claims to be able to see his two children, currently entrusted to their only mother.

An action that highlights the problem of shared custody for binational couples, while this mode of custody in the event of separation does not exist in Japan.

A Frenchman in Japan prevented from seeing his children since their kidnapping by their Japanese mother in 2018 started a hunger strike in Tokyo on Saturday, two weeks before the opening of the Olympic Games and the arrival of Emmanuel Macron. "I gave everything, I lost my job, my house and my savings for three years. I have 80 kilos left, and I will give them to the last gram," Vincent Fichot told AFP, seated on a floor mat at the entrance to a station in Tokyo, not far from the new Olympic stadium.

This 39-year-old Frenchman, who has been living in Japan for 15 years, assures us that he will not stop his action until he has recovered his children, a boy and a girl now aged 6 and 4.

Otherwise, he wants the French authorities to show him that they "really want" to defend his children and "apply sanctions against Japan", which he says violates its international commitments.

His wife used the pretext of domestic violence before the judges, but "she retracted" subsequently and today the Japanese justice "has nothing to reproach me", assures Vincent Fichot.

No shared custody in Japan

Shared custody of children in the event of separation does not exist legally in Japan, so parental abduction is a common practice and tolerated by local authorities.

There are no official figures, but associations estimate that 150,000 minors are victims each year in the archipelago.

Among them are binational children, like those of Vincent Fichot who, after hitting a wall against the Japanese authorities and justice, turned to the French justice and state, European authorities and United Nations.

He plans to go on a hunger strike day and night.

If the police chase him away, he plans to continue elsewhere.

Macron had pledged to act

Members of his support committee in Tokyo, who include other foreign parents enduring the same situation, must regularly bring him water, clean clothes and charge his electronic devices. He will shower in a nearby gym. Vincent Fichot also plans to publish a short daily video on his Facebook page, to explain the problem in Japan and provide information on his physical condition.

French President Emmanuel Macron is due to travel to Tokyo on July 23 and 24, in particular to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

In 2019, during his last visit to the land of the rising sun, the president pledged to act in favor of French parents who no longer have access to their children in Japan, citing "situations of distress which are absolutely unacceptable".

"Cry of despair"

Asked by AFP, Vincent Fichot's lawyer in France, Jessica Finelle, estimated that his radical action was "the cry of despair of a father who has tried everything for three years to find his children". Vincent Fichot is part of a group of ten fathers and mothers of four different nationalities who filed a complaint in 2019 with the United Nations Human Rights Council. A judicial investigation for the subtraction of minors targeting his wife was also opened in France at the end of 2020.

"But today we need significant diplomatic acts", such as the recall of the French ambassador to Japan or the suspension of the "strategic partnership" agreement concluded between Japan and the European Union which has just been ratified by France, insisted Me Finelle. "Only concrete actions can compel the Japanese authorities to react."