A Swiss court has refused to issue a marriage licence to a 71-year-old great-grandmother and the 21-year-old Tunisian fiancé she met on Facebook. Despite their protests that their love is genuine, a judge in the canton of Vaud concluded that the man was merely attempting to marry his way into Switzerland.
Despite their 50-year age gap, the woman told Swiss newspaper 20 Minutes that she had truly fallen for the man, who she met when he was 18 on the social network. “We both like rap music, walks in the countryside. We share the same opinions,” the retired secretary said.
After years of online courtship, the woman travelled to Tunisia last year for a five-day tryst, during which the couple lodged their official request to marry with the Swiss ambassador in Tunis. But the permit was not issued, with the Vaud civil registry office passing it on to a judge for consideration, who determined it was “emotional fraud with the aim of migration.”
Swiss law dictates that couples wishing to wed must submit applications to their local registry office, with officers then examining the documents to determine if the wedding has legal grounding. Couples are forbidden from using the institution of marriage to “circumvent laws on the admission and residence of foreign nationals.”
Speaking to 20 Minutes, the Tunisian man said that the age gap was not a problem for him, saying he had introduced his septuagenarian lover to his family, but not to his friends.
“I don’t want to have children,” he added, “I love her and I want to live with her.”
