According to Eric Ciotti, the increase in increasingly severe criminal acts by increasingly younger individuals compels us to completely rethink our juvenile justice system to break away from the current system.
Parental authority, defined in the Civil Code, is a set of rights but also duties, exercised by parents solely in the interest of the child. Parents are obliged to protect the child, educate them, and ensure their good health and morality.
Eric Ciotti will therefore soon propose a bill, modeled on the one he had previously introduced in 2011, establishing parental criminal responsibility. This measure would allow, upon the first offense, the establishment of a contract between the justice system and the parents aimed at restoring guidance to the minor’s path. If the minor reoffends or if the measures outlined in the contract are not followed, then the parents, who are the architects of their children’s education, would be held legally accountable for non-compliance with this contract. For the President of the Departmental Council of Alpes-Maritimes, it is unacceptable for a minor to be sentenced 5 times, 10 times, without addressing the issue of parental responsibility and without examining what is happening within the family home.
And the culprit is clear: “While since 2012, the Government and Christiane Taubira have been working to weaken our justice system and dismantle punishment by adopting measures whose permissiveness leads to negligence, I am convinced that the recovery of our Republic depends on a necessary restoration of authority. This authority, a value to which the French are attached, must once again be expressed within the family unit, the School, and the judicial institution.”
Leading to an unequivocal conclusion: “Parental responsibility is one of the essential principles of a society that would no longer be abandoned to laxity and an effective means to combat juvenile delinquency. And why not delinquency in general? Because these children, who are allowed today to escape parental authority, will defy the laws of the Republic tomorrow. The family is the basic foundation of society: if it is in trouble, if parental authority disintegrates, the entire society deteriorates.”
To be continued…
