a fierce legal battle between the artist and the mother of his son

A late afternoon, a Wednesday in June 2024, in a daycare center in the northeast of Paris. This time, Ken Samaras – stage name Nekfeu – arrives accompanied by a bailiff. He has not heard from his ex-partner, Houda B., and their three-year-old son for three days. She should, however, have “hand over the child”according to the term used in the office of the family court judge.

When he pronounced the divorce, the judge ruled in favor of the very discreet rap idol, on March 28, 2024. It was decided that the child’s main residence would go to him, and that a right of visitation and accommodation would be granted to his ex-wife: every other weekend, and half of the school holidays. What was recorded in black and white should, in theory, have calmed their chaotic exchanges. Madame picks up her son – who lived the first two years of his life with her – every other Friday at 6 p.m., until Sunday at the same time. But often, she doesn’t hear it that way.

For this reason, Houda B., 32, is summoned to appear – by her ex-husband and the Paris prosecutor’s office – this Wednesday, before the 26^e chamber of the Paris criminal court for several “non-representations of children” between 2022 and 2024. Placed under judicial supervision pending her trial, the young woman is prohibited from going near her son’s school. She had already been sentenced to a civil penalty, amounting to 28,000 euros – 500 euros per offense – for not having returned the son to his father numerous times.

Behind the affair, still in its early stages, lies the sadly common story of a couple separated and in open conflict. But also that of a three-year-old child, the collateral victim of a merciless family and legal battle where arguments, invectives by SMS, letters by lawyers erupt. The summons before the judge and the heavy-handed police interventions at his mother’s home.