You put up with their tears, tantrums and teenage sulks. You fret over their clothes and friends. You pour time, money and energy into them. And you look forward to the day when they will leave home and you can get your life back.

But what if they never want to let go of your purse strings?

That is the risk facing a growing number of parents in France, where they are being sued by children who see no reason to earn a living when they can draw upon the family bank account. Hundreds of young adults go to court every year to demand financial support from maman et papa well into their twenties — in one case, until the age of 42.

Judges often back the claims and order parents to pay anything between €10 (£7) and €1,500 a month.

Now a group of parents have formed an association to demand a change in French legislation and an end to what they see as abusive legal action by their offspring. Their sights are set on an 1804 law — Article 203 of the Civil Code — which states that they have “an obligation to nourish, maintain and raise their children”. This was later amended to specify that the obligation continued even after the age of 18.

“The young people who exploit this law have generally had everything they needed during their childhood,” said Monique Tentorini, founder of the Association for Support and Information for Parents Confronted by Article 203 (Asipa 203). “Then at some point they have a disagreement with their parents, usually over something trivial, and everything goes haywire.”

Mrs Tentorini, 55, set up Asipa 203 after being taken to court by her 21-year-old daughter, a biology student who wanted to study in Canada. “I said, ‘How are you going to manage?’, and she said, ‘Everything’s been sorted out’. The next thing I knew, I got a summons from the court.”

Mrs Tentorini, a social worker from Montélimar in southern France, was ordered to pay €137 a month out of her ¤salary. “We had to tighten our belts and that meant depriving her two younger brothers. But the hardest thing is the psychological suffering. It’s very difficult to accept being taken to court by a close relation.”

Mrs Tentorini has not seen her daughter since.

Such cases are becoming more common, with the number of children suing their parents for financial support rising from about 30 a year at the start of the 1990s to 1,828 in 2006.

Some are pushed into court action by universities seeking to reduce the cost of student grants. Others are convinced by a divorced parent using the grown-up child to attack a former partner.

Many act on their own “because in our consumer society they want everything straightaway”, Mrs Tentorini said. “When I was young, we started to work at an early age but knew nothing of the world and didn’t consider ourselves independent. Today, with studies getting longer, they start work later and later, but at 18 they reckon they know everything. So they think financial autonomy is their right.”

She said that members of her association included a couple whose daughter refused to look for work and sued them for €450 a month, and another whose son went to court because they would not rent a flat for him and his girlfriend.

A doctor from Normandy told his local newspaper that he had become involved in litigation with his daughter after giving her €1,200 a month for two years and a one-off payment of €20,000. “I also made the mistake of telling my bank to cover her overdraft, which sometimes reached €2,000 a month. When I found out, I was horrified and told her to get by on her own.” She reacted by taking her parents to court. They lost.

“At some point a child has to become an adult,” Mrs Tentorini said. “We want the obligation to nourish, maintain and raise children to be limited in time. It should end when they finish their studies.”

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