French airport police under fire for detaining six-year-old Cameroon girl over passport issue

Paris airport police held a 6-year-old French girl for three days on suspicion she had a fake passport — until a judge ordered her released into her mother’s arms, a lawyer said yesterday.

Authorities insist that police were just doing their jobs to protect children from trafficking, but the case has caused indignation in France amid sensitive debate over police treatment of waves of undocumented migrants coming to Europe in recent months.

The girl was detained on Saturday at Charles de Gaulle airport, after arriving from Cameroon, said lawyer Sidonie Leoue. The girl was traveling as an unaccompanied minor carrying all necessary documents, and her mother was waiting at the Paris airport to greet her, Leoue said.

She waited three days.

Police thought the girl’s passport photo didn’t resemble her, and suspected a fake, according to the lawyer and the French Interior Ministry.

The Paris-born girl was held in a special police day care for three days before she appeared before a judge, who asked the girl to identify her mother, seated across the courtroom, the lawyer said.

The girl also was shown photos of a teacher and classmates from a school she had attended in France, and was asked to identify them, which she did.