A court in Grasse, southern France has ordered a clinic in Cannes to pay up to 2 million euros, or about US $2.2 million, to two girls and their families after they were accidentally switched at birth 20 years ago.

The mess up was only discovered 10 years ago when one of the girls, now women, asked her parents why she did not look like her father.

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The family of the girl investigated and later found out that she belonged to another family and that the clinic where she was born made the mistake of giving her to the wrong parents.

Despite the discovery 10 years ago, neither family has wanted to swap the girls back, the BBC reported.

The court ordered the clinic to pay each of the girls 400,000 euros. The parents were awarded 300,000 euros while 60,000 euros were awarded each to three siblings.

The family said they were relieved that the court had recognized that the clinic was responsible for the mess up.

Sophie Serrano, one of the mothers, came out publicly to talk about the mixed-up but the other family opted to remain private and out of the limelight.

Serrano said she gave birth to a daughter in 1994 but the baby had to be brought to an incubator to treat her jaundice.

Another newborn girl was also in the same incubator at that time and Serrano believed it was the auxiliary nurse who unwittingly switched the two babies.

The mothers told the court that they were doubtful when the nurse gave them their babies, especially that the baby they received had skin tones and hair length that were different from what they saw when the babies were born.

After 10 years, Serrano and her husband underwent examinations that showed not one of them was the biological parent of their daughter.

An investigation later connected the two families, which decided to bring the matter to the court. The two families, however, did not discuss the possibility of reversing the swap.

The two families have since distanced themselves from each other and made no contacts. They also did not exchange contact details.

TagsFrench Girls, Baby Switching, Baby Swap