The Quai d'Orsay withdraws its authorization for the Rayon de soleil adoption work for foreign children

The association, one of the largest French organizations for the adoption of children internationally, had its authorizations withdrawn in December 2022. For several years, its probity had been called into question.

The news is "a beginning of relief" , after years spent alerting public opinion to the alleged excesses operated by the French adoption organization Rayon de soleil de l'enfant etranger (RDSEE) in several countries. At the end of January, Marie Marre, founder of the collective of French Adoptees from Mali and herself adopted through RDSEE in Bamako, discovers what she has been calling for since her discovery, in 2018, of many areas of he shadow surrounding its adoption: the Quai d'Orsay has repealed all of the authorizations issued to the organization.

Rayon de soleil, which could until now still carry out adoptions in five countries (Bulgaria, Chile, China, South Korea and India) on behalf of French couples, is now prohibited from acting as an intermediary. The ministerial decree confirming this , dated December 21, 2022, had gone under the radar. The reasons for this global arrest – a rare sanction – are not specified.

"The ministry, in taking this decision, considered that the repeated attacks against RDSEE in certain media did not allow the OAA [authorized adoption body] to fully carry out its mission" , specified, for its part, the association on its website. On November 23, 2022, Le Monde published the results of five years of investigation into alleged irregular adoptions carried out by this association, one of the largest French organizations responsible for the adoption of more than 7,000 children across the country. world since the late 1970s.

In Mali but also in the Central African Republic, Madagascar, Haiti, Peru and Romania, multiple sources ranging from the diplomatic archives of the State to French adoptees, biological parents and adoptive parents, including former officials of the association, questioned the probity of Rayon de soleil. All accused the association of having lied to adopt children who should not have been adopted. Contacted before the publication of the article, the Quai d'Orsay had then confirmed that there had "certainly been illicit practices" within the organization, before specifying that it now considered it as a " reliable interlocutor in the way he works today".

The “hurdle” of limitation periods

Have new elements since allowed the ministry to support the information on the alleged illicit practices described by Le Monde, thus justifying the global ban on practicing? Contacted, the Quai d'Orsay was content to specify, as Rayon de soleil had done before it, that "the repeated accusations" of the organization "for old facts" did not allow it to exercise Normally.

Sylvie Cyprien, the president of RDSEE, specifies that the association intends to contest this decision, considering that "the reason chosen to justify the withdrawal of security clearance does not enter the list of reasons legally provided for by the provisions of the social action and families, and undermines the presumption of innocence”.

Since the fall of 2021, justice has been interested in this case. On September 6, the Paris court called for the opening of an investigation for "concealment of fraud", following a complaint, filed in June 2020 by nine French people adopted in Mali , against the association and his former correspondent in Bamako.

According to our information, a judge was recently appointed but, since then, the investigation has come up against the problem of prescription, the facts alleged by the plaintiffs dating back to the 1990s. However, most French adoptees do not discover the conditions of their adoption only when they become adults . "The State should legislate so that limitation periods are no longer obstacles for adopted persons wishing to turn to justice" , advocates Marie Marre, herself a plaintiff in the Rayon de soleil case.

The 30-year-old hopes that the withdrawal of authorization posed by the Quai d'Orsay against the organization will be followed by state support for French people adopted through it and wishing to find their origins. Because for the time being, dozens of them are embarking on a solitary quest for truth in which there can be many dead ends without State aid, guarantor of the probity of the approved bodies at the time of these adoptions with sometimes contours obscure.

Morgane LeCam

m