French mother who left her seven-year-old son to fend for himself for two years had gone off to live with another woman after divorcing the boy’s father

A mother who abandoned her seven-year-old son and left him to fend for himself went to live with another woman, MailOnline can reveal.

The 39-year-old, whose identity is known to MailOnline but cannot be revealed, dumped the child and left him to fend for himself during the Covid pandemic.

He was forced to steal tomatoes from the vegetable garden on a neighbor’s balcony, but had no idea how to turn on the heating and how to shower with cold water – while she lived with her female lover five kilometers away.

The story came to light earlier this month when the woman appeared in court in the southwestern French city of Angoulême on charges of child abandonment.

In a case that has shocked France, the trial heard how the boy was left alone in a council flat in Nersac, a village on the outskirts of Angoulême, in 2020 until neighbors raised the alarm almost two years later.

In a heartbreaking case, prosecutors said the boy had to wrap himself in three blankets to stay warm during the winter months, when he had no hot water, heat or electricity.

Despite his traumatic circumstances, the ‘intelligent’ boy – who cannot be identified – was able to catch a bus and go to his local primary school, where teachers were unaware of his tragic circumstances.

MailOnline has learned that the mother left her council apartment in Nersac to move in with her lover in nearby Sireuil after splitting from the boy’s father.

A neighbor on the block where the boy lived said: ‘He seemed so normal, he lived in the apartment opposite. I saw him come and go. I didn’t know he was there alone.’

Another neighbor said: ‘I planted a vegetable garden on my balcony and I saw him come and get the tomatoes to eat. Then I understood.

‘He was going to come with another little boy. That’s when we realized something was going on and alerted the authorities.”

A school friend said: ‘He told us he was eating alone and that he would take the bus to school himself. He said he lived alone and his mother was not with him.’

A neighbor in Sireuil said the young boy’s mother was very ‘verbally abusive’, adding: ‘She lives there with another woman. She stands menacingly in front of the apartment with her arms folded.

“How can people have children if she is?”

The woman’s Facebook page features several photos of her own children and her lover, and it is believed the couple also had another child together.

Her biography reads: ‘My family, my happiness is all that matters. I love you very much.’

The mother was sentenced last week to six months of electronic monitoring for abandoning and endangering a minor. The boy’s father, who lived in another city, was not charged.

Before the boy was found in 2022, when he was nine years old, neighbors expressed their concerns to the boy’s mother, who told them she was caring for her son and had to stay out of her business.

His life of loneliness and neglect went unnoticed, locals say, partly because the boy went to school, was clean and got good grades.

The ‘intelligent’ boy, who avoided playing with friends and always went straight home, appears to have thrown himself into school – with psychologists suggesting the routine it provided ‘saved his life’.

The youngster is now in care and refuses to see his mother, who was arrested after neighbors in the village of Nersac, near Angouleme, raised the alarm.

Mayor Barbara Couturier said this France Blue that the boy had done his homework well and was a ‘good student’ despite his ordeal.

“I think it was also a kind of protection that he put around himself, saying ‘everything is fine,'” she said.

She added that she didn’t think anyone would have been able to discover what was really going on, given how well the boy took care of himself.

A classmate of the youngster told TFI television: ‘He told his friends that he ate alone and took the bus alone. He didn’t go out and stayed home all the time.’

Child psychiatrist Gilles-Marie Valet said school “allowed him to stay grounded and promote autonomy, which undoubtedly saved his life.”

‘We can imagine that he acquired a strong capacity for resilience before the age of nine. “He had already developed the ability to calm down on his own and not panic,” he added.

Having learned “the codes of society,” the boy saw teachers as “a pillar of resistance,” and he wanted to impress them.

In that sense, “the school allowed him to stay grounded and promote autonomy, which undoubtedly saved his life,” Mr. Valet said.

Cold food came from cans and the boy also stole tomatoes from his neighbor’s window boxes.

Despite this, investigators are still questioning staff at the boy’s school to find out why concerns were not raised.

Instead, it was left to a neighbor to raise the alarm when he saw the boy walking to school alone.

The boy’s mother had insisted at the trial last week that she had been living with her son, but this was allegedly refuted by mobile data obtained by police showing she had barely been in the flat.

Neighbors have expressed guilt for not realizing what was happening or acting sooner, telling local media that the anonymity of modern life has played a role in allowing the neglect to continue for so long.

‘If there was a family and a village around the family, it didn’t matter much if the mother neglected the child, because the rest of the family and the whole village took care of the child. That is no longer the case,” says a local resident.