to Yaz: Oh, you see Moscow is not in the " middle-of-nowhere " and the mother is not "an indifferent single mom" as you stated here. She came to save her daughter from that agly guy who kidnapped Liza from Moscow in 2008. Moreover it the place where this guy lives that is in the middle-of-complete-n owhere, and he is in fact jobless and homeless - living with his parents. The mother has PhD and a very good work in Moscow. And the last but not the least it's much better for any child to live with its dear mother not with the father, espessially the father like this one, old and without money.

I'm curious to know more about the girl's parents. Growing up with a caring dad on the French riviera would be a lot better than growing up with an indifferent single mom in some middle-of-nowhere Russian town. The converse is true as well. The French court decision could be saving or ruining a life, depending on this information. We shouldn't always be quick to assume the negative.

Is the father going to stay at home to look after the child or is he simply going to farm her out to an au-pair or nanny? I cannot think of many situations where one would take a child from it's mother - and this is not such a situation. In the end, when this child grows up, she will most likely resent her father and the courts that made this decision.