With regard to parental authority, Article 372-2 of the Civil Code provides for a presumption that a parent is deemed to act with the agreement of the other, when he alone makes a usual act of parental authority with respect to the person of the child. The difficulty lies naturally in the determination of what constitutes a usual act of parental authority and can therefore be carried out by one of the parents, presumed to have the agreement of the other, and which requires on the contrary to prove that each parent has consented to this act.
The Council of State, by a decision of April 13, 2018, had the opportunity to specify that an application for a change of school could be considered as a usual act of parental authority considering the circumstances that were known to the administration at the time of filing.
In the present case, the father had requested that the child be deregistered from his college with a view to enrolling him in another establishment, which the college had approved. The mother asked the Administrative Court to order the State to compensate her for the damage she suffered as a result of the delisting and re-registration decisions taken without her consent. The Administrative Court granted her request considering that these requests did not constitute usual acts of parental authority and that the college should not have considered that the father was deemed to act with the agreement of the mother.
The Council of State annulled this judgment, finding that the Administrative Court erred in law in considering, by default, that the request for a change of school could not be regarded as having the character of a usual act of parental authority, without considering the information available to the administration to assess its regular referral.
Of the interest, in case of fear of request by the other parent of delisting of the child from the school, to let the school know beforehand that one is opposed to any delisting without his express agreement.