According to the local media Charente Libre, between 2020 and 2022, the child raised himself from nine until he was 11, without any adults noticing something was awry.

“Nobody noticed anything. Nor the school, where the boy was a good student. Nor the neighbors, who sometimes gave the pre-teen something to eat,” writes the outlet (translated from French to English).

Reports suggest the child was very resourceful. He survived by eating cake, biscuits and canned goods, oftentimes plucking tomatoes that dangled from a neighbor’s balcony.

And, with no one paying the bills, he also lived without heat or electricity. Existing through the unnecessary inconveniences, he slept in a nest of multiple duvet covers and took ice cold baths to stay clean.

Barbara Couturier, the Mayor of Nersac, said the child appeared healthy and clean when he went to school, offering teachers no hints that anything was wrong at home.

Couturier told another local publication: “I challenge anyone who would’ve been able to detect this situation: a clean boy, a good student who was doing his homework.” She adds, “I think it was also a kind of protective shield that he built around himself to say, ‘everything is fine.’”

Suspicious behavior

According to reports, the child’s mother – identified as 39-year-old Alexandra – lived with her girlfriend in another apartment, only file miles away.

The mother was separated from her son’s father, who is absent from the boy’s life, and chose to leave the apartment, taking everything but the child.

BFMTV, a CNN affiliate, reports Alexandra, who had full custody of the boy, would visit the child from “time to time.”

Couturier explained she alerted police after having an uncomfortable interaction with the shady mother.

“I met his mom [in] May 2022. She came to tell us that she had financial problems, and we gave her four vouchers for food, but she took some processed food products instead so that got me suspicious,” the mayor said. “Some residents told me that there was a child living alone, so I connected the two things and I called the local police and the national police.”

‘Unspeakable verbal violence’

Meanwhile, on January 23, following Alexandra’s sentencing, neighbors told BFMTV that the mother was frequently threatening her child. “We heard her swearing at the children with bad words,” said the anonymous neighbor, adding it was “unspeakable verbal violence.”

“We wonder why these people have children,” the neighbor said.

In an interview with Closer Magazine, a resident in the building his mother lives with her partner, echoed the sentiments of her threatening behavior. “We were scrutinized, they stood in front of their house, arms crossed, staring at me,” she said. “I was terrified, in a state of express depression, saying to myself: ‘my God, Help, I want to move.”

Prison time

Appearing in court for her obvious negligence of a child, the room heard that Alexandra did not sleep in the same home as her boy, nor did she take the boy to school.

Though the mother denied all allegations, evidence – including an empty fridge and no adult belongings in the apartment – proved she was very much guilty of all she was charged.

On January 16, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison, six of those months will be spent under house arrest with an electronic monitoring bracelet.

The boy, who is now close to 13, was immediately placed in foster care and refuses any contact with his abusive mother.

While we know the mother did not pay the bills, it’s still unclear if someone was paying the rent.

We’re just happy the boy is now okay, and we hope in time he’s able to overcome the trauma caused by the woman who destroyed two years of his young life.