In France, it’s illegal for consumers to order a DNA spit kit. Activists are fighting over lifting the ban
PARIS — From scanning her resume, you’d never guess Nathalie Jovanovic-Floricourt was an expert enabler of criminal activity. For years, she’d fretted over photo quality and page layout for publishing houses. Since 2007, she’s worked in communications for a bank — hardly a bastion of activist law-breakers. She lives in a quiet town an hour’s train-ride away from Paris.
Then again, her underworld of choice is more socially acceptable than most: Jovanonovic-Floricourt is a self-styled fixer for black-market genetic tests. She’s not a dealer. She doesn’t import spit-in-a-cup kits on anyone else’s behalf. She’s just tried out a bunch of different companies for herself — ordering them to an American package forwarding firm, say, if the manufacturer won’t ship directly to France — and helped others to do the same through talks, salons, books, and blog posts. Often, she says, fellow genealogists come to her with questions about their results.
