Two brothers, aged four and five, who were abandoned in Portugal by their mother and stepfather, are set to be returned to France.
A family court in Portugal’s Setúbal district said on Tuesday, according to Portuguese media reports, that a provisional decision had been taken to place the children under the care of social services in Colmar, north-eastern France.
It added that the children’s return will be coordinated between Portuguese and French authorities, with the aim of causing “minimal harm” to their best interests.
French authorities are also assessing whether relatives or other suitable guardians could take responsibility for the boys, the reports added.
The children were taken into care last Tuesday after being found by a motorist on a rural road in Portugal. They have since been placed with a French-speaking foster family.
The family had been living with their mother in Colmar, Alsace, just a few kilometres from the German border. The mother and stepfather are currently in custody. The circumstances surrounding the abandonment remain unclear.
Their biological father is reportedly awaiting reunification with them. Following his divorce from the children’s mother, he had been granted only limited supervised visitation rights and has since challenged those restrictions in a custody dispute, French media reported, citing the public prosecutor’s office in Colmar. The reasons for the restrictions were not made public.
The father told a local broadcaster that he expected to be reunited with his children within days. “I’m letting the authorities do their job and waiting for their approval to collect them,” he said. “The phone is by my side day and night.”