An octogenarian French woman, who had been arrested by immigration police in the United States and placed in a detention center in Louisiana, returned to France this Friday, announced the French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot. This French woman, who was married to an American and divorced in January, “returned to France this morning and it is a source of satisfaction for us,” said the minister of Foreign Affairs to the press during a visit to Montpellier.
The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed on Tuesday the arrest on April 1st of the 85-year-old woman, who entered the United States in June 2025 with a tourist visa allowing her to stay “90 days” on American soil. However, she was still in the United States “seven months later,” according to American authorities. According to testimonies from neighbors reported by her son Hervé, the 85-year-old woman, who resided in Alabama, was arrested, “handcuffed feet and hands.”
Asked about ICE methods, and not specifically about the case of the 85-year-old woman, Jean-Noël Barrot estimated that they are “not necessarily in line – I am not talking about the specific case but more generally – with those that are in force and acceptable to us.” “There have been violence that has raised our concern. But the main thing is that she is back in France and that satisfies us fully,” he said.
The French woman had decided to settle in the United States and marry an American in 2025, a former Air Force colonel. They had met sixty years earlier when she was a bilingual secretary at an NATO base, and had reconnected after their spouses passed away. This Vietnam veteran passed away abruptly in January at the age of 85. The octogenarian, who hoped for the “officialization” of her green card and held a social security card, “was waiting for the court’s decision on her estates on April 9th” before returning to France “from that judgment,” according to her son.
