French octogenarian placed in detention center in the United States returns to France, announces Jean

An 86-year-old woman was arrested by the American immigration police in early April.

Published on: April 17, 2026 at 12:59
Updated on: April 17, 2026 at 13:12
Reading time: 2 minutes

(KENA BETANCUR / AFP)

She was detained on April 1 by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and placed in a detention center in Louisiana. An 86-year-old French woman, originally from Orvault, near Nantes, France, finally returned to France on Friday, April 17, as announced by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. “It’s a source of satisfaction for us,” said the minister to the press in Montpellier, confirming information from Ouest-France.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed to AFP on Tuesday that the octogenarian, who was married to an American until his death in January, had entered the U.S. in June 2025 on a tourist visa allowing her to stay “ninety days” in the country. However, she was still in the U.S. “seven months later,” according to U.S. authorities.

According to testimonies from neighbors reported by her son Hervé, the 85-year-old woman, who resided in Alabama, was arrested “with hands and feet handcuffed.” “There were violent incidents that caused concern for us. But the essential thing is that she is back in France, and that satisfies us fully,” commented Jean-Noël Barrot.

The French woman had decided to settle in the U.S. and marry an American, a former Air Force colonel, in 2025. They met about sixty years earlier when she was working as a bilingual secretary at a NATO base, and they reconnected after both becoming widowed. This Vietnam veteran passed away suddenly in January at the age of 85. According to her son, the octogenarian, who was hoping for the formalization of her green card and had a social security card, “was waiting for the court’s decision on her succession on April 9” before returning to France “following this judgment.”