Lost in France in love is hardly abduction. Why all the fuss?

WHEN that 15-year-old student and her 30-year-old teacher were on the run in France last week, it was as if the media were trying to recreate a missing child story of Madeleine McCann proportions.

The anxiety of the two families notwithstanding, the way this elopement was reported as abduction gave me the dry heaves — when the couple were caught because they went to an ex-pat pub and were instantly recognised, the headlines were all about the girl being “found safe”. As though she had been kidnapped.

Abduction is when a child is taken against their will. Like the five-year-old Welsh girl last seen being lured into a van — even writing those words sends a sick shiver through me, a cold ripple of horror.

Being photographed strolling past CCTV hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm, raises nothing more than an eyebrow. Yes of course that teacher is a total idiot — immature, irresponsible, misguided. But a pervert? A paedophile? A drooling monster? Hardly. The object of his love was six months from the UK age of consent. In France, where she was already legally old enough to sleep with whomever she pleased, there was general bafflement at the hysteria on the other side of the Manche. Why all the fuss? They were a couple in love — why was everyone freaking out? I would be appalled if my daughter, who is 12 next week, came home telling me she was in love with her teacher. But if she were 15 or 16 and came home telling me the same thing, I imagine I’d remember what it felt like to be young and in love for the first time. It makes you insane.

Nothing is more passionate than a teenager in love — your feelings are like an unexploded bomb. God help anyone who tries to stop you, thwart you, talk you out of it, tell you it’s infatuation, or that anyone is taking advantage of you. Forget it. You are a seething mass of hormones, inexperience and newly awakened desire — your peers, teenage boys, are useless in their clueless boorishness. Older guys are thrilling in comparison.

Before people start writing in, I should reiterate that I am not advocating teachers copping off with students — there are such things as professional boundaries and duty of care. But, but, but. Sometimes stupid, crazy behaviour takes over.

This does not make the teacher a child molester. Fifteen-year-old girls all over the place are having sex, some getting pregnant, most having more sex; to pretend otherwise is dishonest.

But we are hooked by the idea of a 15-year-old copping off with her maths teacher – we like a good story, especially one full of sex and hypocrisy.