14 MENNESSON v. FRANCE JUDGMENT agreement lawfully performed abroad of civil-status documents indicating their legal relationship with their parents, including their biological father. They also considered that there was, at the very least, a favourable trend in Europe towards taking account of situations such as theirs. Referring to Wagner and J.M.W.L., cited above, they pointed out that the need to take account of the child’s best interests had the effect of restricting the States’ margin of appreciation. 64. Referring to that judgment (ibid., § 135), the applicants next submitted that the French courts had not carried out the requisite concrete and thorough examination of their family situation and the competing interests. The Court of Appeal had simply disregarded, without stating reasons, the ground of appeal based on an alleged violation of Article 8 of the Convention and the Court of Cassation had upheld that judgment, merely stating that the measure in question did not prevent the applicants from living together. 65. Furthermore, according to the applicants, the rigid position of the Court of Cassation, which set out to maintain the blanket “deterrent effect” of the prohibition of surrogacy, amounted to precluding any pragmatic arrangement that would recognise – in the child’s best interests – the effects of a situation that had been lawfully created abroad. In their view, this was contrary to the Court’s case-law on Article 8, which had established a practical approach to the reality of family life (the applicants referred, in particular, to the judgment in Wagner and J.M.W.L., cited above, § 133). 66. In the applicants’ submission, the justification by the domestic courts was irrelevant since the principle of the inalienability of a person’s civil status was the subject of numerous practical arrangements. Transsexuals, for example, could obtain a change of the sex stated on their birth certificate, and the legal recognition of children lawfully born abroad as the result of a surrogacy agreement was the subject of debate among legal commentators, in Parliament and in society. It was all the more irrelevant since in principle French law was currently favourable to “intended” parents. Accordingly, in the case of the implantation of embryos in the womb of a third party, which was legal in France (the applicants referred to Articles L. 2141-4 et seq. of the Public Health Code), a woman who carried the embryo of another couple and gave birth to a child who was not biologically hers, could – as could her partner – establish a legal parent-child relationship with that child that excluded the biological parents. Similarly, in cases of donor insemination (also legal in France), no legal parent-child relationship could be established with the sperm donor, whereas a legal parent-child relationship with the mother’s partner could be established (the applicants referred to Articles 311-19 and 311-20 of the Civil Code). 67. The applicants observed that an additional factor to be taken into account was that the interference did not allow the pursued aim to be achieved, since, as pointed out by the Court of Cassation, it did not deprive