16 MENNESSON v. FRANCE JUDGMENT of situation there had been a failure to take account of the “social reality” and that “the child [had] not [been] afforded legal protection making it possible for her to be fully integrated into the [in that case] adoptive family”. They also questioned the purpose of refusing to register the particulars of birth certificates drawn up abroad if, as the Government maintained, such certificates took full effect in France and registration was a mere formality. 69. The applicants also submitted that the Court’s ruling of no violation of Article 8 in A, B and C v. Ireland ([GC], no. 25579/05, ECHR 2010) and S.H. and Others v. Austria ([GC], no. 57813/00, ECHR 2011), which concerned access to abortion and medically assisted reproduction respectively, was based on the finding that, although domestic law prohibited these practices, it did not prevent individuals from going abroad to take advantage of them, and, in S.H. and Others v. Austria, that the legal father-child and mother-child relationship was thus “[governed by] clear rules of the Civil Code [that respected] the parents’ wishes”. 70. In their replies to the additional questions put by the President of the Section (see paragraph 5 above), the applicants indicated that under Article 311-14 of the Civil Code, the legal parent-child relationship was governed by the law of the mother’s country on the date of the child’s birth (and where the mother was not known, by the law of the child’s country), that is, according to the case-law of the Court of Cassation (Civ., First Division, 11 June 1996), the law of the country indicated on the birth certificate. It was clear from the Supreme Court of California’s decision of 14 July 2000 that the official parents of the third and fourth applicants were the first two applicants. The French authorities and courts had refused to make that finding, however, with the result that as the mother was not recognised as having that status under French law, the legal parent-child relationship could not be governed by the law of her country. Accordingly, it was governed by the law of the country of the third and fourth applicants: US law. As the legal parent-child relationship between them and the first two applicants could not be established under French law and the Court of Cassation’s judgments of 13 September 2013 had annulled the recognition of paternity by biological fathers of children born as the result of a surrogacy agreement performed abroad ..., the third and fourth applicants could not acquire French nationality under Article 18 of the Civil Code (“a child of whom at least one parent is French has French nationality”) even though the first applicant was their biological father. The applicants added that, notwithstanding the circular of 25 January 2013 ..., the third and fourth applicants could not obtain a certificate of nationality. They submitted that, as a result of the judgment delivered in their case by the Court of Cassation and its decisions of 13 September 2013 describing as “fraudulent” the process by which the birth certificate of a child born abroad of a surrogacy agreement was drawn up, the US birth certificates of the children were