2 MENNESSON v. FRANCE JUDGMENT THE FACTS I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE 6. The first and second applicants were born in 1965 and 1955 respectively. The third and fourth applicants were born in 2000. They all live in Maisons-Alfort. A. Birth of the third and fourth applicants 7. The first and second applicants are husband and wife. They were unable to have a child of their own because the second applicant is infertile. 8. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to conceive a child using in vitro fertilisation (IVF) with their own gametes, the first and second applicants decided to undergo IVF using the gametes of the first applicant and an egg from a donor with a view to implanting the fertilised embryos in the uterus of another woman. Accordingly, they went to California, where the process is legal, and entered into a gestational surrogacy agreement. The applicants specified that, in accordance with Californian law, the “surrogate mother” was not remunerated but merely received expenses. They added that she and her husband were both high earners and therefore had a much higher income than the applicants and that it had been an act of solidarity on her part. 9. On 1 March 2000 the surrogate mother was found to be carrying twins and, in a judgment of 14 July 2000, the Supreme Court of California, to which the first and second applicants and the surrogate mother and her husband had applied, ruled that the first applicant would be the “genetic father” and the second applicant the “legal mother” of any child to whom the surrogate mother gave birth within the following four months. The judgment specified the particulars that were to be entered in the birth certificate and stated that the first and second applicants should be recorded as the father and mother. 10. Twins – the third and fourth applicants – were born on 25 October 2000 and their birth certificates were drawn up in accordance with the terms stated above. B. Refusal by the French consulate to register the particulars of the birth certificates 11. In early November 2000 the first applicant went to the French consulate in Los Angeles to have the particulars of the birth certificates entered in the French register of births, marriages and deaths and the