The end of a childhood horror story for eight brothers and sisters

It's a shocking story and one which hit the headlines on Tuesday afternoon here in France.

A couple have been taken into police custody and charged with neglecting and mistreating their children after police and social services discovered the wretched conditions in which they were living.

The case first came to the attention of the local authorities just last Friday in Banyuls-sur-Mer in the southwestern French department of Pyrénées Orientales.

One of their children was seen rummaging through dustbins. The 16-year old was bleeding from the head and visibly emaciated.

Passers-by informed the police and when questioned, he explained that he had been hit on the head with a pot by his mother and beaten on the arms with a stick.

He had been punished, he told the police, because he had stolen a lump of sugar.

The boy weighed just 32 kgs (71 lbs) for 1,65m (five feet and five inches) and was immediately taken to hospital for treatment.

When the police arrived at his home to question his parents, they found an apartment almost bare of furniture according to the regional daily newspaper, Le Midi Libre.

There were no beds, just covers that served as mattresses. The kitchen and the sitting room were locked and the fridge was virtually empty.

There were also seven other children in the apartment - one boy and six girls - ranging in age from seven to 17. They all showed scars and traces from having been regularly beaten.

Two of the girls, aged 13 and 15, weighed just 22kgs (48lbs) and were immediately taken to a nearby hospital.

The remaining children were taken to a foster home and on the way "the police stopped at a fast food restaurant and the eyes of the children lit up as though they had discovered another world," is how Le Midi Libre describes their journey out of hell.

The parents were immediately taken into police custody.

The father, a 50-year-old devout Moslem, reportedly told investigators that for him the condition of his children was a sign of the success of their education, and that he wanted to "purify them".

"This is a case of a family that lived outside of reality and totally cut off from the rest of society," Jean-Pierre Dreno, the public prosecutor of Perpignan told reporters.

"The father's behaviour was exactly as one would expect from someone who treated his own family as a sect," he added.

Only three of the children were sent to school, the rest had dropped out once they had reached puberty because the education authorities refused to allow them to attend wearing headscarves.

Under French law there is a ban on the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in public schools at both primary and secondary levels;

"There had been a conflict in the past between the mother and the school authorities especially about absenteeism " said Dreno.

"The only affair that we had in this department in 2003 about the wearing of the headscarves at school involved this family and theoretically the children were following lessons by correspondence," he added

The father and his 49-year-old wife have been charged with putting at risk the health and lives of their children and failing to provide them with the appropriate education and security.

They also have a ninth child who is no longer living at home.

Girl in custody battle back in France with father

This is a follow-up to a piece that first appeared here last month.

You might remember the story of Elise, the three-and-a-half-year-old girl who was abducted in the southern French city of Arles on March 20.

Her father, Jean-Michel André, was left badly beaten, an alerte de l'enlèvement (the equivalent of an amber alert) raised and French police put out a nation-wide search, which was later extended throughout the whole of Europe for the girl and her Russian-born mother, Irina Belenkaya

On Sunday Elise was found safe and sound in Hungary, close to the border with the Ukraine.

Police there detained the mother and Elise was reunited with her father on Monday, with Victor Gioia, the lawyer for André confirming that his client had flown to Hungary to collect his daughter and said that the goal now was "to try to avoid yet another trauma in the girl's life."

Elise has been abducted three times since the couple split in 2007.

"The father's intention was not to start another battle with the girl's mother, but to find a solution that would allow their daughter to have a more-or-less normal life," Gioia told French media.

He also added that his client would not be pressing charges against Belenkaya who is due to appear before a court in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, on Wednesday.

And on Tuesday afternoon André and Elise arrived back in France.

While the story seems to have had a happy end - at least as far as the father and French law are concerned - it still leaves a lot of issues unresolved.

The case remains particularly complex because both parents have been awarded individual custody of Elise by courts in their respective countries.

Similarly both are liable to prosecution for abduction in one another's countries; Belenkaya in France and André in Russia.

According to the national daily, Le Figaro, the French authorities will be getting in touch with their Russian counterparts in the coming days to "try to find a solution for the family that is in the best interests of the child."

For its part Russia says although it judged Elise's return to her father to have been "premature" it has proposed to France that the two countries try to co-operate to find a solution to the dispute between not just the two parents but also the two countries' legal differences.

"We have a case which is very complicated from the judicial perspective," said Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday.

"That's why we want to propose to France that experts from both sides undertake a concrete consultation process."

French rosé winemakers see red

There has been a row brewing between France and the European Commission since the beginning of the year and it's all likely to come to a head at the end of this month.

It concerns the status - or more accurately the composition - of one of this country's most hallowed traditions - wine-making.

And more precisely what exactly should constitute a rosé.

In essence the dispute threatens to pit France against the other 26 members of the European Union, all of which agreed collectively in principle in January with a European Commission directive that would change the rules by which rosé wine could be produced in Europe.

At the moment it's created in the traditional way from red wine grapes which have been left to soak for a shorter time than would be necessary to make red wine.

The alternative practice in some other parts of the world is "blending", the simple mixing of red and white wines.

Brussels (home to the European Commission) now wants blending to be allowed in Europe to create rosé.

France - and in particular the large lobby of vintners in this country - wants the existing method of production to remain as it is and says any change would seriously threaten a tradition and livelihoods.

But the European Commission sees things rather differently. The French business daily Les Echos explains that as far as the Commission is concerned a change in the rules would open up the whole process of making rosé wine more flexible and less bound by tradition.

In doing so it would allow Europe to exploit emerging markets such as China and make its wine industry as a whole more competitive with those from other parts of the world such as Australia and South Africa.

Both countries already produce rosé using the blended method of production.

The economics are certainly something that haven't escaped wine-makers attention - both in Europe and internationally.

Rosé wine consumption is up - both at home and abroad - and has seen a steady rise over the last 15 years.

And heading the list of rosé wine producers are three European countries, all of which use the traditional method; France - 29 per cent of the global production at 5.9 million hectolitres, followed by Italy and Spain with 4.5 million and 3.8 million hectolitres respectively.

If the directive were to be universally adopted throughout the EU, France would be forced to make that change in the way it produces rosé.

Vintners here are worried. especially in the region of Provence a part of the country renowned for its rosé , that not only a tradition is under threat, but also livelihoods and jobs.

"It would be a terrible blow to the consumption of rosé which has grown considerably in the last decade and a half," according to François Millo the director of Provence winemakers' association (conseil interprofessionnel des vins de Provence).

And that's a view shared by Linda Schaller, the commercial director of Château Les Crostes in
Lorgues, in Var, Provence.

"Blending would mean that the wine would no longer be a rosé (in the real sense)," she insists.

"If the directive were adopted, then it would take something away that belongs to our tradition."

The French agriculture minister, Michel Barnier (who coincidentally will be heading the ruling centre-rightUnion pour un Mouvement Populaire, Union for a Popular Movement, UMP's list in the Ile de France region for the upcoming June European, parliamentary elections) remains optimistic that a compromise can be found that will also satisfy French wine producers.

"It's true that we're somewhat isolated in our stance to wish to preserve the traditional methods whereas the majority of our partners favour authorising blending," he admits.

"We're perhaps on out own here, but I hope that at least there'll be a change of heart and an agreement can be reached."

Part of that agreement could involve a two tier system of labelling as suggested by French wine makers, which would distinguish between "blended" rosé and that made using the traditional production methods.

"We are aware of the worries of producers from certain regions (in France) and in particular Provence, and those expressed by Michel Barnier. and we're going to look into how to react," says Michael Mann, a spokesman on agricultural affairs at the Commission.

A final decision on exactly what form the directive will take is expected on April 27.