Paternity Testing Ban Upheld in France

If those samples were found in the post by officials on their way to foreign laboratories, the French men who sent them could theoretically face a year in prison and a 15,000 Euro fine. This year the ban was challenged but the French Government decided to uphold and maintain the anti-paternity testing law.

The reasons for which the Government said the ban should remain were related to the preservation of peace within French families. According to some online articles, Germany, has also banned (or plans to ban) paternity testing for similar reasons. French psychologists suggest that fatherhood is determined by society not by biology. For this reason, the President’s wife Carla Bruni describes her father as the man ‘from whom she takes her name’. She is friends with her biological dad too but she doesn’t refer to him, or think of him as, her father.

In the US, paternity testing kits are sold in pharmacies and they are easily purchased online both there and in the UK. In fact, there are dozens of commercial testing labs out there all offering very competitively priced paternity testing which is virtually 100% accurate (99.99%).

Peace of Mind Paternity Testing

The argument against allowing paternity testing in France is directly opposed to the argument for allowing it almost everywhere else. While French Authorities believe that paternity testing can cause friction within families, some fathers find that getting rid of any doubt relating to their relationship with their child can help strengthen the bond they have with them, instead.

In cases where their paternity has been verified, the child could actually get to know who their ‘real’ biological father was and many people believe that is important. So, rather than causing disputes, paternity testing in France could actually settle them. Now that the ban has been upheld, French fathers are likely to continue breaking the law in an effort to discover whether children in their care are biologically theirs.

Peace of mind paternity testing can be carried out with the mother’s sample or even without the mother’s sample.

Read more about our paternity testing with or without the mother.

Foreign Paternity Testing Labs

Some statistics from the Nantes Atlantique Genetic Institute reveal that every year in the region of 15,000 French fathers go online and buy paternity testing kits. Furthermore, a Swiss lab recently said that 60% of the tests it performs are sent there from France. Meanwhile, a Spanish lab confirmed similar figures, saying that French men make up 80% of its customer-base.

While personal paternity testing is illegal in France; court issued, official paternity tests aren’t. Each year in the region of 1,500 tests are performed under strict legal circumstances and by the orders of a judge. That’s a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of testing which is undertaken illegally through foreign parties. According to information to be found in Lancet, a British Medical journal, as many as 1 in 30 children are not actually the biological son or daughter of the man who it is commonly believed fathered them.