French Couple Abandons Two Sons in Portuguese Woods, Then Sips Coffee in Nearby Café
A French mother and her partner left their two young sons blindfolded in Portuguese woods before spending hours at a café 125 miles away. The boys were found by local residents and are now in foster care awaiting return to France.
Two young boys wandered for hours through Portuguese woods, blindfolded and terrified, after their mother and her partner left them alone in the forest. The suspects then drove 125 miles away and spent more than five hours drinking lattes at a café terrace, chatting with customers as though nothing had happened.
The Setúbal court ordered pre-trial detention on May 23 for Marine Rousseau, 41, and Marc Ballabriga, 55, citing flight risk. Both face charges of domestic violence, child abandonment, and endangerment, along with aggravated assault charges. The boys, Barthelemy, 5, and Zacharie, 3, are in foster care in Lisbon and await return to France.
Rousseau and Ballabriga allegedly blindfolded their sons and told them to play a game called "drive away the devil." The children were instructed to dig for a buried knife to cut off their blindfolds. When the older boy removed his brother's blindfold, they found themselves alone in a wooded area between Alcácer do Sal and Comporta. They wandered for hours before being found around 7 p.m. on May 19 by local residents Eugenia and Artur Quintas.
"They were crying, they were terrified," Artur Quintas told multiple outlets. "They were crying and calling for their father." The children carried backpacks with a change of clothes, fruit, cookies, and water but no identification documents. A toxicology report showed no drugs, and the boys were discharged from Setúbal Hospital in good health.
The couple was tracked down at O Vasco café in Fátima, where they spent more than five hours eating cakes, drinking lattes, and chatting with customers. Café owner Jorge Lopes said the couple "acted as if nothing had happened" and were "searched and handcuffed without any stress at all." He added, "It was as if they didn't have blood running through their veins."
Another customer told Metro that Ballabriga remarked, "Look at this. I'm here in the sun and the sun is looking at me." A French-speaking pensioner called police after noticing the couple had occupied the terrace for hours.
The calculated journey spanned approximately 1,365 miles from Colmar, France, to Alcácer do Sal, Portugal. The couple drove across Spain with European arrest warrants active. CCTV captured the family's car at a petrol station in Miranda do Douro on May 11 at 6:16 p.m. The couple deliberately left their 16-year-old child behind in Colmar.
Rousseau describes herself as a sexologist on social media and LinkedIn, having studied psychomotricity at Pierre and Marie Curie University and sexology at Paris Diderot University from 2019 to 2022. Ballabriga is a former French gendarmerie officer who left the force in 2010. He was convicted in 2010 of domestic violence and harassment against the mother of his daughter, sentenced to nine months in prison with two years suspended. Le Parisien reported he also posts conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic content on Facebook.
At their May 23 court appearance, Rousseau sang opera-like passages and Ballabriga repeatedly shouted "Je vous aime" ("I love you") in French. GNR spokesperson Lt. Col. Carlos Canatário described the couple as "distant" and "detached." RTP reported the couple was overheard discussing a plan to "pretend they were crazy" after arrest.
The biological father reported the children missing on May 11. Colmar prosecutor Jean Richert said of the father, "He's like everyone else, he doesn't understand." The father is traveling to Portugal to apply for custody, and Portugal's Setúbal District Court stated that the children can only be returned to France following a formal request from French authorities. Portugal's Justice Minister Rita Alarçao Judice said the process would "proceed as quickly as possible to minimize the trauma."
Psychologist Mélanie Tavares told CNN Portugal the children "will be in constant distress, a great deal of distress from abandonment, and distress from separation." She warned, "This is a trauma that will remain, just like when we get a tattoo. It stays for life."
The 5-year-old and his 3-year-old brother still carry only what strangers packed into their backpacks—a change of clothes, fruit, cookies, water. No identification. No parents. A tattoo, Tavares says, that stays for life.