This is the heartbreaking story of a 9-year-old boy forced to live by himself in a cold apartment for two years after his mother moved in with her boyfriend 3 miles away.

French newspapers reported the sad and shocking story of a boy who lived alone in a low-income housing unit in Nersac for two long years after being abandoned by his mother who went to live with her boyfriend in a nearby town. Between 2020 and 2022, the unnamed boy survived mainly on sweets, canned food, and food from neighbours, while his mother lived comfortably at her boyfriend’s house, just 5 kilometres away, in Sireuil. She only came by once in a blue moon to check up on him and bring him some food, but she never stayed long and she never once took him to her place

When the gendarmes entered the boy’s apartment in a low-income housing building in Nersac, they found an empty fridge, a trash can full of cake wrappers and empty food cans, and no sign of an adult – no clothes, no shoes, not even a toothbrush. After questioning the boy living there, they confirmed that he had been living by himself for two years and that his mother rarely came to visit.

After visiting Alexandra, she claimed that the neighbours who confirmed her son’s story of being “problematic people”, and insisted that she took the boy to school every day, even though her own phone tracking data shows otherwise.

I always forgot by phone at home,

she explained.