Investigation "The child you asked for is born": when baby trafficking flourished on French soil

The use of DNA tests, banned in France, sheds light on long-hidden abuses committed with impunity over several decades: illegal adoptions, false birth certificates, etc. "Libé" has collected the testimony of children adopted in murky conditions and of a mother forced to abandon her.

In the playground, she would cheerfully answer: "My skin color is because I go to Spain all summer. The sun loves me." The explanation suited her, she is so dark and matte, and her parents are as fair as wheat. But the year she turned 10, she overheard her grandfather mention her "adoption." The ground beneath her feet cracked. The information steeped in her stomach for a long time without a word - her mother "freezes" at any attempt to discuss it, her father hardly better. Today, at 56, Blandine still doesn't know the precise circumstances of her birth. Especially since legally... she was not adopted. According to the civil registry, she was born to the Vignolles couple on November 1, 1968, "exactly as if my adoptive mother had given birth to me." No trace of abandonment or birth under X. The copy of her full birth certificate reveals nothing. "I was white as a baby, my mixed-race origins only became visible later. Without that, I might never have known anything."

When her parents die, she rummages through their documents and finds a cardboard folder stuck in the house construction plans. On this letterhead, typewritten: "The baby you asked for and I promised you