Legal, parliamentary and institutional developments on the topic, added as they are published — never on a fixed schedule. Every entry links back to its original source. Most developments covered here concern French law and institutions specifically, since that is where Sia Trog's sourced research is based.
The child-protection bill passed by the French National Assembly in July is now heading to the Senate
On July 21, 2026, the French National Assembly passed on first reading the bill on child protection (public vote No. 8430: 378 in favor, 7 against, 173 abstentions, 558 voters). The text now moves to the Senate: opinion No. 79 (2026-2027) of the Senate's social affairs committee, whose rapporteurs are Jean Sol and Brigitte Bourguignon, was filed on October 20, 2026. According to that document, the bill covers, among other things, the recruitment and accreditation of foster carers, oversight of children's homes and care settings, a single digital file for each child under protection, the use of trusted third parties, certain administrative measures that can be taken with the agreement of only one parent, and a derogation from certain principles of parental authority where it is in the child's interest. It does not address parental alienation as such, but it sets the framework in which children are protected and placed, including in high-risk family conflicts. It is not yet law: the Senate still has to vote, after which the text can be definitively adopted.
New French law guarantees every child the right to a lawyer in child-protection proceedings
Law No. 2026-630 of July 13, 2026, published in the Official Journal on July 14, guarantees every child involved in an educational assistance and child-protection measure — including a provisional placement order — the right to be assisted by a lawyer, regardless of their level of maturity. As soon as proceedings open, the children's judge must ask the bar association to appoint a lawyer, unless the child chooses their own; an ad hoc guardian may also be appointed in certain cases. Legal costs are fully covered by legal aid, funded by a new tax on tobacco products, starting January 6, 2027. This measure directly concerns situations where a child is placed under protective custody amid a high-conflict family dispute, including cases where parental alienation is raised.
French parliamentary inquiry report criticizes the continued use of ‘parental alienation syndrome’ in court-ordered expert assessments
Created unanimously by the French National Assembly on January 28, 2026, chaired by MP Maud Petit and reported by MP Christian Baptiste, the commission of inquiry into the judicial handling of parental incestuous sexual violence and the situation of protective parents (particularly protective mothers) held 43 hearings between February and July 2026 — over 100 hours of exchanges with 132 people (associations, pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists, lawyers, magistrates, law enforcement, protective parents) and nearly two hundred written submissions. Its report, filed on July 1, 2026 and made public on July 9, sets out 49 recommendations covering criminal law, procedure and judicial organization. It specifically flags the continued use, in some court-ordered expert assessments, of the notion of ‘parental alienation syndrome’ (PAS) — despite the absence of recognized scientific consensus — with documented consequences: abusive custody removals, children returned to an abusive parent, or a ‘protective’ parent being penalized instead. This is precisely the tension this dossier has documented from the start: the risk that a concept with no scientific consensus is, in some cases, used to turn the accusation back on the parent who raises the alarm. Note: this is a French parliamentary report about French institutions and French law; it does not describe or imply an equivalent process elsewhere.
A bill filed in the French National Assembly would repeal the offence of non-representation of a child
Bill No. 3040 “to fight the judicial harassment suffered by protective parents of children who are victims of incestuous violence”, filed on July 7, 2026 by MP Andrée Taurinya and more than eighty MPs, contains a single article repealing article 227-5 of the French Criminal Code, i.e. the offence of non-representation of a child (failing to hand a child over to the parent entitled to them). Its authors argue that the offence is used as a tool of judicial harassment against protective parents. The text also amends articles 227-9 and 227-10 so that they refer only to article 227-7 (child abduction), which stays in force. It has been referred to the law committee, with no further step to date. It is only a proposal: nothing changes unless it is adopted. The subject is divisive: on one side, protective parents who say they are prosecuted while trying to protect their child; on the other, parents deprived of their child for whom this offence remains one of the few criminal levers available today.
A citizen petition for the legal recognition of parental alienation in France did not reach the required threshold
Filed on May 16, 2025 by citizen Valérie Quervel on the French National Assembly's petition platform, petition No. 2871 asked for parental alienation to be legally recognized as a form of psychological abuse, for justice professionals to be trained in detecting it, for the creation of dedicated support services, mandatory monitoring for high-conflict families, and sanctions for confirmed alienating behavior. Classified by the Social Affairs committee, it gathered only 119 of the 100,000 signatures needed before the January 19, 2026 deadline to be examined. It illustrates real social demand on this topic in France — and just as clearly, how difficult it remains to turn that demand into formal legal recognition.