Mexico City - AFP
A Frenchwoman and her ex-husband, a former Mexican governor close to his country's president, have resolved a high-profile, three-year-old child custody battle that made headlines in both nations.
Maude Versini told AFP on Sunday that she and her husband signed an agreement allowing her to take her three children to France for seven weeks per year.
In return, Versini agreed to drop her legal actions against Arturo Montiel, a former governor of the central State of Mexico, who has had their three children in Mexico since January 2012.
"We signed this agreement (before a judge) last night (Saturday) in which I gave up way too much for my taste, but I didn't have much of a choice," she told AFP at Mexico City's airport.
She was heading back to Paris after spending Easter in the State of Mexico with her children, 11-year-old twins Adrian and Sofia and 9-year-old Alexi.
Versini and Montiel married in 2002 but divorced five years later.
A Mexican court initially gave her custody of the children, but Montiel kept them in Mexico when they traveled here in 2012.
In May 2014, French authorities issued an international arrest warrant against Montiel. In March, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission urged Mexico to implement measures to allow Versini to see her children without restrictions.
Versini, who had asked the commission to intervene, saw her children in December for the first time in three years, at a judicial center in the central Mexican city of Toluca.