France: Police at Airport Detain Girl, 6, for 3 Days
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Version 0 of 1. The airport police in Paris held a 6-year-old French girl for three days on suspicion that she had a fake passport — until a judge ordered her released into her mother’s custody, a lawyer said Friday. The authorities said that the police were doing their jobs to protect children from trafficking, but the case has caused indignation in France amid a sensitive debate over police treatment of waves of undocumented migrants coming to Europe in recent months. The girl was detained Saturday at the Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris after arriving from Cameroon, said the lawyer, Sidonie Leoue. She was traveling as an unaccompanied minor carrying all necessary documents, and her mother was waiting at the airport to greet her, Ms. Leoue said. But the police thought the girl’s passport photo did not resemble her and suspected a fake, according to the lawyer and the French Interior Ministry. The girl, born in Paris, was held in a special police center for children for three days before she appeared before a judge, who asked the girl to identify her mother, seated across the courtroom, the lawyer said. |