Tetraplegic Frenchman can be taken off life support: EU human rights court

The European Court of Human Rights has allowed France to take a tetraplegic man in a vegetative state off life support turning down an appeal by his parents.

People demonstrate at Conseil d'Etat for Vincent Lambert in Paris, June 24, 2014, as France's top administrative court gave the green light to end his life support. (AAP/VINCENT EMERY) Source: AAP

STRASBOURG, France, June 5 (Reuters) - The European Court of Human Rights on Friday allowed France to take a tetraplegic man in a vegetative state off life support, turning down an appeal by his parents in a legal battle that has torn a family apart.

The European court upheld a ruling by France's top administrative court which had authorised doctors to put an end to the intravenous food and water keeping alive the 38-year-old who was victim of a car crash in 2008.

The ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg in eastern France, cannot be appealed. The high-profile case has pitched Lambert's parents and twoof their children against five other children and Lambert's wife Rachel, who won French clearance last June for doctors to effectively end her spouse's life after years in a coma.

(Reporting By Gilbert Reilhac; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Brian Love)