Father forces son to eat school report card

Parental responsibility in education is something of a political catchphrase at the moment here in France especially when it comes to tackling the problem of truancy.

But one man in the western central city of Poitiers took his "duties" a step further by hitting his son for obtaining bad grades and forcing him to eat his report card.

Students holding report card, Wikipedia, author Aaron Manning

It's one of those tales that surely makes you sit back and wonder what could have been going through the parent's mind.

As outlined in the regional daily La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest, the man wasn't happy with the grades his son had obtained on a recent report card, and as a punishment he sent the teenager to his room but not before "Giving him a wallop on the backside".

His anger didn't stop there though, as he apparently followed the boy upstairs, forced him to eat his report card and then slapped his son across the face.

When the boy appeared in school the next day with a swollen lip, teachers contacted social services and the police, who charged the father with assault.

"Overstepping the mark" was how the national daily Aujourd'hui en France-Le Parisien described the man's behaviour, and one with which many readers seemed to agree in the newspaper's comments section.

But judges were more lenient when the man appeared before a court on Tuesday, finding him guilty of assault but handing down just give a two-month suspended sentence and ordering him to pay his son the sum of €1 in damages.

The relationship between the two has "improved" according to the man, who said during the trial that "Since the event (of the report card) I have no longer hit my son."

Well that's all right then!