MENNESSON v. FRANCE JUDGMENT 3 children’s names entered on his passport so that he could return to France with them. 12. The applicants stated that many French couples in their situation had previously succeeded in carrying out that procedure. The consulate rejected the first applicant’s request, however, on the grounds that he could not establish that the second applicant had given birth and, suspecting a surrogacy arrangement, sent the file to the Nantes public prosecutor’s office. C. Investigation in respect of the first and second applicants 13. As the US Federal Administration had issued US passports for the twins on which the first and second applicants were named as their parents, the four applicants were able to return to France in November 2000. 14. In December 2000 a preliminary investigation was carried out at the request of the public prosecutor’s office. 15. In May 2001 an investigation was commenced against a person or persons unknown for acting as intermediary in a surrogacy arrangement and in respect of the first and second applicants for false representation infringing the civil status of children. 16. On 30 September 2004, in accordance with the submissions of the Créteil public prosecutor, the investigating judge gave a ruling of no case to answer on the ground that the acts had been committed on US territory, where they were not classified as an offence, and therefore did not constitute a punishable offence in France. D. Proceedings in the civil courts 17. In the meantime, on 25 November 2002, on the instructions of the public prosecutor’s office, the particulars of the birth certificates of the third and fourth applicants had been recorded in the central register of births, marriages and deaths in Nantes by the French consulate in Los Angeles. 18. However, on 16 May 2003 the Créteil public prosecutor instituted proceedings against the first and second applicants in the Créteil tribunal de grande instance to have the entries annulled and the judgment recorded in the margin of the entries thus invalidated. He observed that an agreement whereby a woman undertook to conceive and bear a child and relinquish it at birth was null and void in accordance with the public-policy principle that the human body and civil status are inalienable. He concluded that, as the judgment of the Supreme Court of California of 14 July 2000 was contrary to the French concept of international public policy and of French public policy, it could not be executed in France and that the validity of civil-status certificates drawn up on the basis of that judgment could not be recognised in France.