Mediation offence in relation to surrogate motherhood in France: Lawsuits to put an end to impunity !
Although surrogate motherhood is prohibited in France, French people are using it abroad. Foreign agencies and their French intermediaries are operating illegally on French soil, committing “surrogate motherhood mediation offences” in total impunity. Several lawsuits have now been lodged in order to put an end to such complacency.
Surrogate motherhood: a world market for procreation
The recruitment of surrogate mothers, buying of oocytes, selection of embryos: Companies are specialising in this truly worldwide procreation market. The international ambition of the Casablanca Declaration, which recently registered new complaints in France, is to stimulate awareness and to ensure the effective prohibition of surrogate motherhood. In its press release, it states: “We refuse that France should become a hunting ground for surrogate motherhood lobbyists.” The Casablanca Declaration is a community of experts and personalities committed to the protection of women and children against the worldwide market of surrogate motherhood. It operates in numerous regions worldwide.
What exactly is meant by a mediation offence in relation to surrogate motherhood?
The practice of surrogate motherhood is prohibited in France as in many other states. This prohibition registered in French Law signifies, in particular, that the human body is “unavailable”. It cannot be made available, sold, given or be subject to a convention, of any kind whatsoever, whether gratuitously or against payment. It also signifies that a child cannot be the subject of a transaction. In French Law, there is therefore a “mediation offence in relation to surrogate motherhood” punishable by a 15,000 euro fine and a one-year prison sentence for any person found guilty of “acting as intermediary between a person or a couple wishing for a child and a woman accepting to bear the said child with a view to handing it over” (article 227-12 of the French Penal Code).
Complaints registered in France
However, this type of offence has been committed on our soil, for years and the first lawsuit in France for such an offence against a Californian company (Extraordinary Conception) dates back to 2014. Nevertheless, since then, such marketing continues, with no apparent fear of the legal consequences. French Law is being trampled underfoot, in total impunity.
For example, Romain Taillandier, the official representative in France of the American company Fertility Center of Las Vegas (FCLV) provides, among other things, surrogate motherhood to people resident in France. He has publicly announced on social media the organisation of a French tour in 2025, alongside the founder of the American procreation clinic. Such marketing is obviously illegal. It is in that context that the Casablanca Declaration group has announced having submitted two series of penal claims against him to the Paris, Lyon and Bordeaux State Prosecutors in April 2025, and then announced a further 9 penal claims on 27th May 2025 in Angoulême, Toulouse, Montpellier, Marseille, Nice, Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand, Paris and Lille. Following the first claims, although widely documented and relating to public facts, nothing has changed. “The administrative authorities, the police authorities, town halls, all invested with the same responsibility to enforce public order, remain indifferent and the state prosecutors themselves remain passive with the commission for such offences” as deplored by the authors of such complaints.
The following day, 28th May 2025, a complaint was registered against Maxime Lebouteiller, the representative of an American surrogate motherhood agency. He had in fact publicly announced coming to France to provide his intermediary services for surrogate motherhood, between the coming 18th and 25th June. The association therefore also called upon the Paris Chief of Police, asking him to intervene.
Through these legal actions, the jurists and spokesperson of the association have reaffirmed the need to enforce the law and prevent any establishment of practices contrary to the law and to the fundamental principles of French Law.
Note that Reem Alsalem, the Special Reporter to the United Nations on violence against women and girls, will be devoting her 2025 report to surrogate motherhood.
Further reading:
Surrogate motherhood file – Alliance VITA
Major mobilisation for the universal prohibition of surrogate motherhood – 8th April 2024
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