In France, when the couple is not married, the father must recognize the child at birth and this is the behavior adopted by the vast majority of fathers. Thus, in 2011, only 6% of children had not been recognized by their father. In this case, the mother can, on behalf of the child, take legal action by launching proceedings for recognition of forced paternity. A DNA test will then be ordered by the courts.
Mandatory DNA test
This is what happened to the former captain of the Blues football team, Marcel Desailly. As Le Parisien revealed this Monday, the former player was forced to submit to a DNA paternity test this summer and the results came back, he is indeed the father of Victoria, born in March 2014. “ The probability of paternity is greater than 99.99999 %”, write the biologists, cited by our colleagues.
The result, however, should not have surprised the former defender, who for several years had a relationship with Victoria’s mother, a Brazilian woman he met in Paris in the early 2010s. We lived together for years, in the same apartment. In private, Marcel had never denied his paternity », Says the young woman who now lives with her daughter in Bilbao, Spain, at the request of the former player.
Living together with the child’s mother
When they started this relationship, the player was still in a relationship with his first wife with whom he had four children. But he still moved into an apartment in Paris with Cosma, who gave birth to Victoria, in March 2014. If Marcel Desailly insisted on choosing the first name – already worn by his first daughter – he refused to recognize the paternity of the child . However, until 2018, Marcel Desailly lived with Cosma and was called dad by Victoria as evidenced by photos and testimonies which attest to a family life.
In 2018, his relationship with his wife ended, as did the one with Cosma. The former player then makes more and more trips to Ghana, his country of origin, in which he now lives, and where he also has a family with two children, according to information from Le Parisien. But it was only in 2021, after the confinements, that the player cut ties with Cosma and his daughter, whom he refuses to recognize, denying being the father. His ex-partner then takes him to court.
Beyond the non-recognition of paternity, the former player would have criticized Cosma for the media coverage of the affair and threatened to propose an article ” on the idea of all Brazilian women who act f… and cause problems for men. I will try to find people who distribute the newspaper in the neighborhood where you are. », he writes. These threats pushed the young woman to close the beauty salon she had opened in Spain.
A precedent in 2014
The next hearing for official recognition of paternity will take place on December 10. Cosma will claim 1 symbolic euro in damages for the threats, 5,000 euros monthly in alimony and that her daughter bears the name Desailly.
The year of Victoria’s birth, in 2014, Marcel Desailly had already been tried by the court of Toulon (Var) in a case of the same nature. The player refused to acknowledge his paternity regarding Aïda, born out of wedlock. At the time, he had refused the DNA test and was therefore named the child’s father, allowing his daughter Aïda to obtain all the rights linked to parentage, such as inheritance.
Senegal
