Moroccan Man in France Sentenced to 12 Years for Family Abuse

The events took place at the family home in Espaly-Saint-Marcel at the end of April. The mother and her four children leave the home after yet another argument with her husband. Together, they settle in a social and professional reintegration center (CHRS) Le Tremplin, in Le Puy-en-Velay.

Medical examinations reveal the violence suffered by the children at the hands of their father: "abnormal" bruises. The elders declare having received slaps, corrections with slippers on the buttocks. "It’s not violence, it’s education. I can’t accept that the oldest uses big words to his mother," defends A.B.

The mother confides having been a victim of violence on several occasions, which she reported. "We didn’t get along well," the fifty-year-old agrees. These unrecognized acts of violence against minors have prompted the lawyer Marcel Schott, on behalf of the association Justice et Partage, and the substitute Marie Moschetti "We are not in extreme violence, we are reproaching him with educational methods from another time," they say.

Defending his client, Ladislas Mazur-Champanhac, the family father’s lawyer, evokes the cultural element in parents born in Morocco. "You can’t condemn for ambient violence," the lawyer continues. He relies on a decision already handed down by the Paris High Court in March 2000: "The offense of violence requires a positive act knowingly committed with the expectation that it will result in harm to the person of another."

The verdict is handed down: A.B is sentenced to 12 months in prison with probation. "The violence against your wife is unacceptable, as is your educational method," the judges hammer home. However, parental authority is maintained.