Stepmother convicted in France for slapping boy, 5
It is illegal to smack children since 2019
The stepmother was sentenced to attend a parental responsibility course, and must have no contact with the boy for one year.
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A woman has been convicted of violence against a minor by a parent after slapping her five-year-old stepson on the back of his head.
She appeared at the criminal court in Caen (Calvados) in February.
The incident took place in 2023 in Bourguébus, a town 10km south-east of Caen, local media reported.
The woman, 41, who has not been named, told the court she “lost control”.
She explained it was the last day of the school holidays and both she and her husband were unwell.
She said she got out of bed and saw the little boy standing close to his little brother (she has two younger children with the boy’s father) with a bottle of nail varnish remover and cotton balls.
She allegedly panicked and slapped the back of his head.
She said it was the first time she had hit the child, explaining her usual punishment when he misbehaved would be to send him to his room.
The victim told his biological mother when he returned to her house and she filed a complaint.
During an interview with police, the boy said he had taken a bottle of perfume, which is why his stepmother hit him.
“I know this should never have happened. I don't make any distinction between him and my children,” the accused said.
“I spoke to him afterwards and sent a letter of apology. Now I'm in the process of getting a divorce," she told the court.
'A hard slap'
The boy’s mother claimed he told her his stepmother would regularly give him little taps on the back of the neck but this time “it was a hard slap”.
The prosecution said the boy was still traumatised by the incident, while his mother accused his stepmother of treating him differently from her other children.
The defence argued the case stemmed from a rivalry between the two women, who had previously been friends before the husband left the boy’s mother for his current wife.
The stepmother was sentenced to attend a parental responsibility course, and must have no contact with the boy for one year.
She was also ordered to pay the boy €300, plus €100 to the mother for emotional distress and €800 in legal fees.
France banned the smacking of children in 2019, becoming the 56th country in the world to do so.
However, attitudes have lagged behind the law. In 2022, almost a quarter of French parents admitted to smacking their children on the bottom, according to an IFOP study for the Fondation pour l’Enfance.
The survey questioned 1,314 parents of children aged 0-10 and found that 23% admitted to spanking their children on the bottom, 20% to pushing them and 15% to slapping them.
