Legal System in France

Legal System in France

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Basic Structure of the French Legal System
Government Structure
Types of Legislation
The Court System
Parliament
Official Websites
Ministries (departments)
Local Communities
Other (Semi) Governmental Institutions and Independent Administrative Authorities
Legislation
French
English Translations
Case Law
French
English Translations
Law Faculties
Law Libraries
Literature
Law Dictionaries
Citation
Discussion Lists and Blogs
Miscellaneous Legal Sites

Basic Structure of the French Legal System
The French Republic ( la République Française ) is ruled by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic (October 4th, 1958). A more detailed description of the French legal system is given by Claire Germain in her French Law Guide , or the English version of the instruction manual of the official website Legifrance – French public service for the dissemination of the Law on the internet: “About Law” .

France

This last link gives access to four very useful official webpages, translated into English by the European Commission Services :
· Portal Europa E-Justice : Member State law – France : In this section you will find an overview of the different sources of law in France.
· Portal Europa E-Justice : Member State case law – France : In this section you will find an overview of case-law sources and what they contain, as well as links to the relevant databases.
· Search Engine N-lex : A common gateway to National Law. Link toward the description and the content of the official database Legifrance (with the details of the types of French legal texts)
· And finally the Search help pages for the French pages of the Search Engine N-lex

Government Structure
France is a centralized country, even if the 1st Article of the Constitution seems to say the contrary (“It shall be organised on a decentralised basis”), first of all, France “shall be indivisible”. The French Republic is ruled by a semi-presidential system, called ‘rationalized parliamentarism’. The Head of the State ( le Président de la République , François Hollande, elected in May 2012) is elected by direct universal suffrage every 5 years (revision of the Constitution in September 2000). The President designates a Prime minister – from the parliamentary majority. Parliament shall comprise of the National Assembly ( Assemblée nationale ) – and the Senate ( Sénat ). They both pass the Statutes ( Lois ).

For a more precise and accurate study, see the reports written for each major elections by the OSCE – ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights – Elections), A major constitutional reform has been made in July 2008, on several institutional aspects, but especially in the Law making process. The Parliament received a stronger role in the vote of the Law. Another important aspect of the 2008 constitutional reform is the new constitutional obligation for the Government, to publish an Impact Assessment before each Bill, in order to comply with the new European Union’s strategy ” Better Regulation “.

Types of Legislation
France is ruled by a strict hierarchy of norms. An overall norm is the http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/english/index.asp#legal (traditionally merged with declarations of rights of 1789 and 1946, and with the Charter for the Environment of 2004). Under this text, Parliament ( Assemblée nationale + Sénat ) should pass the statutes ( les Lois ), with an internal hierarchy: institutional act ( loi organique ), ordinary act ( loi ordinaire ), and ordinance ( ordonnance ). This last type of text is taken by the Government, authorized by the Parliament for a certain time, which has to validate the ordinance after this time.

The executive power has the right to enact regulations ( règlements ) which are called décrets (for Prime Minister and President of the Republic) and arrêtés (for the rest of the executive branch). Statutes and non-individual decrees have been numbered according to the form “99-1234” since 1945. Since 2000, these texts are named according to the form “2000-1234″. All Statutes and decrees, and the most important arrêtés , are published in the official gazette ” Journal officiel de la République française, édition lois et décrets “, and receive unique reference numbers (since 1987: a NOR for ‘NORmalized’). This might be useful for some databases. Since June 2004, French Law could also be published electronically . (See The Public Service of the dissemination of the French Law on the Internet’, Stephane Cottin published in Review Acta Universitatis Sibiu 2005 (1/2))

The Court System
The French judicial system is historically strictly divided into two separate bodies: judiciary (ordinary) law and administrative law. At the top of the judiciary courts (concerning civil, trade, labor and criminal laws) there is a Supreme Court of Appeals or Cour de cassation ( English access ): 80 judges are appointed by the President of the Republic from nominations of the High Council of the Judiciary. For the record , there are also 36 courts of appeals, 161 tribunaux de grande instance , and 307 tribunaux d’instance (the lower level). At the top of the administrative courts (concerning the litigations involving public sector), there is the Council of State or Conseil d’Etat , with 8 cours administratives d’appel and 42 tribunaux administratifs .

The Constitutional Council, or Conseil constitutionnel , is in charge of the constitutional review of the statutes before they are enacted ( in abstracto control). The reform of the Constitution of 2008 created a new in concreto control, and the direct access to the Conseil by citizens, called the ‘Questions prioritaires de Constitutionnalité’ (well known under their acronym QPC) : priority preliminary ruling on the issue of constitutionality . The Constitutional Council is also in charge of the control of national elections (Parliament, President of the Republic, Referendum). The Constitutional Council consists of nine members: three members appointed by the president, three members appointed by the president of the National Assembly, and three appointed by the president of the Senate. In addition, former Presidents of the Republic are ex officio members of the Constitutional Council.

For a comprehensive presentation, see the website of the Justice Department (for the presentation in English: ” The Judiciary in France “).

Parliament
The French Bicameral Parliament, or Parlement, consists of the Senate, or Sénat , (348 seats, including 12 for French nationals abroad; members were indirectly elected by an electoral college to serve six-years terms; elected by half every three years) and the National Assembly or Assemblée Nationale (577 seats; members are elected under a single-member majoritarian system to a serve five-years term). With the last elections in 2012, for the first time, 11 French nationals abroad have been directly elected.

The “French Republic’s number three assembly” can be found in the Conseil économique, Social et Environnemental . This one has only advisory powers but it produces very interesting reports in the social, economic and environmental domains.

Official Websites
Legifrance : Public Service of the dissemination of the Law. Contains the full text of the official gazette from 1990 consolidated statutes and decrees from 1978, all the official codes (some of them are translated into English and Spanish , see below) and links to other official sites. Several tutorials in French are available in the Main Help section (see especially the ” Guide Legifrance” (in French). A good presentation of the main lines of the French Law is also offered in English in this section: About the French Legal System. Since July 2014, all the public databases are available in XML format through open data license for reuse (see http://rip.journal-officiel.gouv.fr/index.php/pages/juridiques in French).

Service-Public .fr: “Its design is focused on answering users’ needs and on simplifying user’s relations with Government agencies and services. Currently there is access in English to public sites (local, national, European, International organizations, foreign Countries)”. This website includes the guide ” your rights and procedures ” and a public service by phone ( Allo Service Public 3939 ) which inform – in French – the user about his/her rights and obligations and directs him/her to relevant organizations. This website maintains a selection of French public websites containing information in English .

Vie-Publique.fr : Official or governmental information for French citizens. It is the portal of all the public policies.

Ministries (departments)
Several websites maintain lists of French ministries (note : in French, department = ministère ) and offer English access:
· Wikipedia notice : Council of Ministers of France
· Government Portal (English page : http://www.gouvernement.fr/english )
· The GIT (Groupe interministériel de la traduction – Interdepartmental group for translation) exposes on Legifrance an official list of translated name of the French departments for each government : http://legifrance.gouv.fr/Traductions/Gouvernement-Valls
Note that ministries are regulatory producers, and most of them give access to legal material in their own areas of competence.

Find here some important departments with English Internet access:
· Department of Justice ( English access )
· Department of Defense ( English access )
· Department for Foreign Affairs – ( English access )
· Department of Agriculture ( English access )

Local Communities
The General Directorate of Local Authorities – DGCL (website in French) – belongs to the Ministry of Interior.

You can also find English access to some useful explanations http://www.france.fr/en.html .

France is divided into several administrative levels. The most important are: Région (22), Département (101), Canton (app. 4000), Commune (app. 37500). A reform is planned in 2015 to reduce the numbers of levels, especially the number of regions. In 2014, the 22 régions are Alsace, Aquitaine, Auvergne, Basse-Normandie, Bourgogne, Bretagne, Centre, Champagne-Ardenne, Corse, Franche-Comté, Haute-Normandie, Ile-de-France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Limousin, Lorraine, Midi-Pyrénées, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Pays de la Loire, Picardie, Poitou-Charentes, Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, and Rhone-Alpes. Metropolitan France is then subdivided into 96 departments. France counts also 5 overseas départements (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion and Mayotte), 6 overseas territorial collectivities with special status (Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, French Polynesia, Wallis & Futuna and New Caledonia). A territorial reform is planned for 2015, in order to reduce to 14 the number of Régions, to strengthen their political role.

Other (Semi) Governmental Institutions and Independent Administrative Authorities
Here is a selection of some of these websites, especially those with some information for English-speaking readers:

· Post and Electronic Communications Regulation Authority ( ARCEP : Autorité de régulation des communications électroniques et des postes ) ( English access )
· Data Inspection Board ( CNIL : Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés ) ( English access )
· Broadcasting Control Authority (CSA : Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel ) ( English access )
· Défenseur des droits – Ombdusman (former “Médiateur”)
· Stock exchange control authority ( Autorité des marchés financiers ) ( English access )
· Competition Authority (former “Conseil de la concurrence”) ( English access )
· French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights ( CNCDH ) (National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) as defined by the generic United Nations (UN) terminology)
· Consumer Safety Commission ( English access )
· Haute Autorité de santé ( HAS ) – French National Authority for Health ( English access )
· National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies – INSEE ( English access )

Legislation

(French)
Paid Subscriptions
French legislation is officially published (paper) in the Journal officiel (official gazette) and in several official bulletins or other official publications . Since June 2004, French Law has also been officially published electronically .

The collected texts of the legislation in force are also available in private editions of ‘Codes’. Law topics are shared by several editors: some famous editors are Dalloz (with red books), Litec, Francis Lefebvre , Juris-Classeur (part of Lexis-Nexis France, with the most comprehensive offer: “codes et lois”).

The official service named ” Service Public de Diffusion du Droit par l’Internet ” (Public service for the Dissemination of Law through the Internet) is now provided on a free and open data by the Government via Légifrance . Private vendors reuse the data and offer rich data services with associated fees: Lexis-Nexis France (French division of Reed-Elsevier), Lamy (French division of Wolters-Kluwer) and Lexbase , for example. Westlaw is represented in France mainly by the Transactive Company, but doesn’t offer (as yet) comprehensive access to French Law.

Free Internet Services
Legifrance is offering the whole content of the ‘ Journal officiel ‘ since 1990, and also the consolidated text of every Acts ( Lois ) and decrees ( décrets ) since 1978, and some (the most important) of them from before. The oldest one is from 1536! Note that the Official Gazettes sites offer several other services, including, in English, Info-Financiere.fr (regulated information on listed companies)

Emmanuel Barthe has written on this site (Globalex) a study on French Law on the Internet – The Basics and Free Resources , in 2005, constantly updated on his own blog ( precisement.org ) here with several other joint issues:
· French cases : researching docket sheets and full text, 2007
· Official guides to French law and French case law — in English
· Indemnifying personal injury in France : tools for calculating damages, 2006

The global and open initiative between several universities and public services created the unofficial portal Droit.org , with a page dedicated to all the works on French Law in English language .

(English Translations)
Printed Sources
· French Law, Constitution and Selective Legislation, Henry P. De Vries, Nina M. Galston, Regina B. Loening : Transnational Juris Publications, Inc., New York, 1988, ISBN 978-0929179001
· Sourcebook on French Law, by Pollard David, Cavendish Publishing Ltd, 1998, ISBN 1-85941187-8

· The Making of Law: An Ethnography of the Conseil d’Etat, Bruno Latour, John Wiley & Sons, 2014, ISBN 978-0745673714

· French Legal Method, Eva Steiner, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-1841741857

· Introduction to French Law, George A. Bermann, Etienne Picard, Kluwer Law International, 2012, ISBN 978-9041140005

· French Administrative Law and the Common-law World, Bernard Schwartz, The Lawbook Exchange, 2011, ISBN 978-1584777045

· The constitution of France: a contextual analysis, Sophie Boyron, Oxford Portland Or. 2013, ISBN 978-1-8411-3735-3

Internet Sources in English
They are rare and never officially binding. Nevertheless, the official portal Legifrance offers nine codes (out of more than seventy-five) and two main acts http://legifrance.gouv.fr/Traductions/en-English : Civil law, Civil procedure law, Intellectual Property law, Post and Telecommunication’s law, Insurance law, Procurement contract law, Criminal law, Criminal procedure, Trade law and Consumer law. Some institutions, offer unofficial translations of legal materials: see http://legifrance.gouv.fr/Traductions/en-English/Translations-from-institutional-websites.

You can see also the works of Harvard Law School Library ( French Legal Research guide ), Mirela Roznovschi ( NYU ), and “French Law in action” Claire Germain (Cornell Law School).

Case Law

(French)
Paid Subscriptions
Since 2002, the ” Service Public de Diffusion du Droit par l’Internet ” (Public service of Dissemination of Law through the Internet) provides caselaw of the three supreme courts ( Cour de cassation, Conseil d’Etat, Conseil constitutionnel ). The decisions are available in full text since 1986, and in selection from the early 1960s. Private vendors offer practically the same services, improved by scholars’ comments, with associated fees ( Lamyline.com or WKF – Wolters Kluwer France ; Lexbase ; Juripro (now part of Thomson). For the other courts (Courts of Appeal) a fee-based service is available from Jurisdata for selected decisions from 1980.

Free Internet Services
Legifrance gives the list of official websites proposing case law . More efficient lists or access methods to caselaw are here on the Jurisguide (in French Paris I) or on ServiceDoc.info (in French, Stephane Cottin).

(English Translations)
English translations of French case law are scarce. There are a few periodicals, however, that publish English summaries of case law. The Constitutional council has been providing English summaries of its caselaw since 1989 in its Yearbook (ed. Dalloz). Some international organizations may offer some selected caselaw. A good example is the International Association of Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions in the Recueil de décisions des hautes jurisdictions administratives / Selection of decisions of Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions, or for the Commission for Democracy through law ( Venice commission ) in his Bulletin on Constitutional Case-Law and the Codices Database .
The Institute of Global Law (Pr. Basil Markesinis, University College of London) gives short summaries of French legal caselaw. The English translations of legal decisions include cases from the Conseil d’Etat , the Cour de Cassation and the Conseil Constitutionnel , the latter of which provides directly through its website some English-translated full text of decisions: click here .

Law Faculties

· Directory of French universities
· Directory of the AMUE (Agency for the Mutualization of the Universities, English access )
· Campus France (Studying in France)

Incidentally, there is English access to the official portal Edutice on Teaching with Information and Communication Technology (use the acronym “TICE” in French). There is not (yet) English-speaking access to the free online lessons of the UNJF (Digital French-Speaking Law University) . In 2014, several MOOCs have been offered on an official platform (FUN, for France Université Numérique), with several courses in legal matters, some of them are partly in English.

Law Libraries
The most important law library in France is Cujas (University of Paris Pantheon-Sorbonne). The whole catalog of the library (4 million items) is online. Others libraries have electronic access, including the National Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France , ( direct access to the selection of legal resources ), or for example, Sciences-Po Paris (Library) .

Literature
Google Book Search on French Law
LC Classification: KJV233 .E43 2006
Dewey Class No.: 349.44 (22nd ed.)
Library of Congress Subject Heading: Law — France (idem on OpenLibrary.org )

General

· French Legal System, by Catherine Elliott, Catherine Vernon, Eric Jeanpierre, New York : Longman, 2006, 376 pages , ISBN 978-1405811613
· French Legal System, by Andrew West, Yvon Desdevises, Alain Fenet, Oxford University Press, 2005, 377 pages, ISBN 0-406-90323-9
· French Legal Method, by Eva Steiner, Blackstone Press, 2002, 254 pages, ISBN 1 84174185 X
· A History of French Public Law (Law Classic) by J. B. Brissaud (Paperback – Aug 2001) ISBN 978-1587981012
· Learning French Through The Law, by Vivian Grosswald Curran, Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburg School of Law, A publication of the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law, Columbia University. 300 pages, ISBN 0-9650295-0-6
· Principles of French Law, by John Bell , Sophie Boyron, Simon Whittaker, Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-19876395-6, a second edition 2000 is available ISBN 978-0198763956, and a third one published in march 2008, ISBN 978-0199541393
· French substantive law, by Dadomo Christian and Farran, Sweet & Maxwell Ltd, 1996, ISBN 0421525509
· Introduction to French Law, by Dickson Brice, Financial Times Prentice Hall (a Pearson Education company), 1994, ISBN 0273601407

Business Law

· French Business Law in a Box (CD-ROM – Sep 1, 2006) ISBN 978-1905507375
· French Arbitration Law and Practice by Jean-Louis Delvolve (Hardcover – Oct 2003) ISBN 978-9041122254

Civil Law

· The French Civil Code by John H. Crabb (Translator) 2002, Kluwer Law International; ISBN 90 6544797 0
· French Property and Inheritance Law: Principles and Practice by Henry Dyson (Paperback – Oct 25, 2003) ISBN : 978-0199254750

Constitutional and Administrative Law

· French Administrative Law And the Common-law World by Bernard Schwartz and Arthur T., II Vanderbilt (Hardcover – Dec 30, 2006) ISBN 978-1584777045
· French Administrative Law : L. Neville Brown, John S. Bell With the Assistance of Jean-Michel Galabert, 1998, Oxford Univ Pr, ISBN 0198765134

Criminal Law

· The French Penal Code of 1994 As Amended As of January 1, 1999 (American Series of Foreign Penal Codes, 31) by Edward A. Tomlinson 1999) Fred B Rothman & Co, ISBN 0837700531
· French Criminal Law by Catherine Elliott (Paperback – May 2001) ISBN : 978-1903240304

Law Dictionaries
Dictionnaire juridique français-anglais / anglais-français: Law Dictionary French-English/English-French, by Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson et alii, ed. Dalloz, 2004, ISBN 978-2247058228

The most common French law dictionary is Vocabulaire Juridique, by Gérard Cornu, ed. PUF, 2007, ISBN 978-2130559863

An online glossary of French-English Legal terms can be found in the virtual Law Faculty of Lyon III.

A comprehensive list of French legal glossaries (books and online) is on the website of Emmanuel Barthe (Precisement.org)

Citation
There is no official method of legal citation in French. Private and public editors have their own systems and their own abbreviations. However, on this excellent website Jurisguide, you will find some examples and practical exercises of translation of French legal citations:
· Exercise about citation and bibliography on Jurisguide
· Abbreviations on Jurisguide

At the European level, some initiative has to be mentioned: the ” Code de rédaction interinstitutionnel ” (communitarian law) ( English version ).

For information on French legal bibliography (University of Montreal, Canada, in French): Bibliothèque de droit and especially this chapter on the meaning of the abbreviations in French legal bibliography .

Discussion Lists and Blogs
Several French law lists have been created. Most of them are not really discussion lists, but one-way lists. Discussion lists, properly speaking, can be found here , but the most important flow of legal information goes now through blogs.
Five Usenet newsgroups concern legal matters:
news: fr.misc.droit, news: fr.misc.droit.famille (Family issues), news: fr.misc.droit.immobilier (Real Estate), news: fr.misc.droit.travail (Labor) and news: fr.misc.droit.internet. Caution: they accept only French-written news.

The list of the association ” Juriconnexion ” could be useful for legal librarians. Some other good mailing lists like the ” Droit-net ” list are also well known for the quality of the debates, but they are exclusively French-speaking.

On twitter, you can find some useful “tweets” with the search on the words ” French Law “, or with (in French) the hash tag #droit .

Miscellaneous Legal Sites

Basic Structure of the French Legal System

The French Republic ( la République Française ) is ruled by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic (October 4th, 1958). A more detailed description of the French legal system is given by Claire Germain in herFrench Law Guide , or the English version of the instruction manual of the official website Legifrance – French public service for the dissemination of the Law on the internet: “About Law” .

This last link gives access to four very useful official webpages, translated into English by the European Commission Services :

Portal Europa E-Justice : Member State law – France : In this section you will find an overview of the different sources of law in France.
Portal Europa E-Justice : Member State case law – France : In this section you will find an overview of case-law sources and what they contain, as well as links to the relevant databases.
Search Engine N-lex : A common gateway to National Law. Link toward the description and the content of the official database Legifrance (with the details of the types of French legal texts)
And finally the Search help pages for the French pages of the Search Engine N-lex

Government Structure

France is a centralized country, even if the 1st Article of the Constitution seems to say the contrary (“It shall be organised on a decentralised basis”), first of all, France “shall be indivisible”. The French Republic is ruled by a semi-presidential system, called ‘rationalized parliamentarism’. The Head of the State ( le Président de la République , François Hollande, elected in May 2012) is elected by direct universal suffrage every 5 years (revision of the Constitution in September 2000). The President designates a Prime minister – from the parliamentary majority. Parliament shall comprise of the National Assembly ( Assemblée nationale ) – and the Senate ( Sénat ). They both pass the Statutes ( Lois ).

Types of Legislation

France is ruled by a strict hierarchy of norms. An overall norm is the http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/english/index.asp#legal (traditionally merged with declarations of rights of 1789 and 1946, and with the Charter for the Environment of 2004). Under this text, Parliament ( Assemblée nationale + Sénat ) should pass the statutes ( les Lois ), with an internal hierarchy: institutional act ( loi organique ), ordinary act (loi ordinaire ), and ordinance ( ordonnance ). This last type of text is taken by the Government, authorized by the Parliament for a certain time, which has to validate the ordinance after this time.

The executive power has the right to enact regulations ( règlements ) which are called décrets (for Prime Minister and President of the Republic) and arrêtés (for the rest of the executive branch). Statutes and non-individual decrees have been numbered according to the form “99-1234” since 1945. Since 2000, these texts are named according to the form “2000-1234”. All Statutes and decrees, and the most important arrêtés , are published in the official gazette ” Journal officiel de la République française, édition lois et décrets “, and receive unique reference numbers (since 1987: a NOR for ‘NORmalized’). This might be useful for some databases. Since June 2004, French Law could also be published electronically . (See The Public Service of the dissemination of the French Law on the Internet’, Stephane Cottin published in Review Acta Universitatis Sibiu 2005 (1/2))

The Court System

The French judicial system is historically strictly divided into two separate bodies: judiciary (ordinary) law and administrative law. At the top of the judiciary courts (concerning civil, trade, labor and criminal laws) there is a Supreme Court of Appeals or Cour de cassation ( English access ): 80 judges are appointed by the President of the Republic from nominations of the High Council of the Judiciary. For the record , there are also 36 courts of appeals, 161 tribunaux de grande instance , and 307 tribunaux d’instance (the lower level). At the top of the administrative courts (concerning the litigations involving public sector), there is the Council of State or Conseil d’Etat , with 8 cours administratives d’appel and 42 tribunaux administratifs .

The Constitutional Council, or Conseil constitutionnel , is in charge of the constitutional review of the statutes before they are enacted ( in abstracto control). The reform of the Constitution of 2008 created a new in concreto control, and the direct access to the Conseil by citizens, called the ‘Questions prioritaires de Constitutionnalité’ (well known under their acronym QPC) : priority preliminary ruling on the issue of constitutionality . The Constitutional Council is also in charge of the control of national elections (Parliament, President of the Republic, Referendum). The Constitutional Council consists of nine members: three members appointed by the president, three members appointed by the president of the National Assembly, and three appointed by the president of the Senate. In addition, former Presidents of the Republic are ex officio members of the Constitutional Council.

For a comprehensive presentation, see the website of the Justice Department (for the presentation in English: ” The Judiciary in France “).

Parliament

The French Bicameral Parliament, or Parlement, consists of the Senate, or Sénat , (348 seats, including 12 for French nationals abroad; members were indirectly elected by an electoral college to serve six-years terms; elected by half every three years) and the National Assembly or Assemblée Nationale (577 seats; members are elected under a single-member majoritarian system to a serve five-years term). With the last elections in 2012, for the first time, 11 French nationals abroad have been directly elected.

Official Websites

Legifrance : Public Service of the dissemination of the Law. Contains the full text of the official gazette from 1990 consolidated statutes and decrees from 1978, all the official codes (some of them are translated intoEnglish and Spanish , see below) and links to other official sites. Several tutorials in French are available in the Main Help section (see especially the ” Guide Legifrance” (in French). A good presentation of the main lines of the French Law is also offered in English in this section: About the French Legal System. Since July 2014, all the public databases are available in XML format through open data license for reuse (seehttp://rip.journal-officiel.gouv.fr/index.php/pages/juridiques in French).

Vie-Publique.fr : Official or governmental information for French citizens. It is the portal of all the public policies.

Ministries (departments)

Several websites maintain lists of French ministries (note : in French, department = ministère ) and offer English access:

Wikipedia notice : Council of Ministers of France
Government Portal (English page : http://www.gouvernement.fr/english )
The GIT (Groupe interministériel de la traduction – Interdepartmental group for translation) exposes on Legifrance an official list of translated name of the French departments for each government :http://legifrance.gouv.fr/Traductions/Gouvernement-Valls

Note that ministries are regulatory producers, and most of them give access to legal material in their own areas of competence.

Find here some important departments with English Internet access:

Department of Justice ( English access )
Department of Defense ( English access )
Department for Foreign Affairs – ( English access )
Department of Agriculture ( English access )

Local Communities

The General Directorate of Local Authorities – DGCL (website in French) – belongs to the Ministry of Interior.

You can also find English access to some useful explanations http://www.france.fr/en.html .

France is divided into several administrative levels. The most important are: Région (22), Département (101), Canton (app. 4000), Commune (app. 37500). A reform is planned in 2015 to reduce the numbers of levels, especially the number of regions. In 2014, the 22 régions are Alsace, Aquitaine, Auvergne, Basse-Normandie, Bourgogne, Bretagne, Centre, Champagne-Ardenne, Corse, Franche-Comté, Haute-Normandie, Ile-de-France, Languedoc-Roussillon, Limousin, Lorraine, Midi-Pyrénées, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Pays de la Loire, Picardie, Poitou-Charentes, Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, and Rhone-Alpes. Metropolitan France is then subdivided into 96 departments. France counts also 5 overseas départements (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion and Mayotte), 6 overseas territorial collectivities with special status (Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, French Polynesia, Wallis & Futuna and New Caledonia). A territorial reform is planned for 2015, in order to reduce to 14 the number of Régions, to strengthen their political role.

Other (Semi) Governmental Institutions and Independent Administrative Authorities

Here is a selection of some of these websites, especially those with some information for English-speaking readers:

Post and Electronic Communications Regulation Authority ( ARCEP : Autorité de régulation des communications électroniques et des postes ) ( English access )
Data Inspection Board ( CNIL : Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés ) ( English access )
Broadcasting Control Authority (CSA : Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel ) ( English access )
Défenseur des droits – Ombdusman (former “Médiateur”)
Stock exchange control authority ( Autorité des marchés financiers ) ( English access )
Competition Authority (former “Conseil de la concurrence”) ( English access )
French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights ( CNCDH ) (National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) as defined by the generic United Nations (UN) terminology)
Consumer Safety Commission ( English access )
Haute Autorité de santé ( HAS ) – French National Authority for Health ( English access )
National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies – INSEE ( English access )

Legislation

(French)

Paid Subscriptions

French legislation is officially published (paper) in the Journal officiel (official gazette) and in several official bulletins or other official publications . Since June 2004, French Law has also been officially published electronically .

The official service named ” Service Public de Diffusion du Droit par l’Internet ” (Public service for the Dissemination of Law through the Internet) is now provided on a free and open data by the Government viaLégifrance . Private vendors reuse the data and offer rich data services with associated fees: Lexis-Nexis France (French division of Reed-Elsevier), Lamy (French division of Wolters-Kluwer) and Lexbase , for example. Westlaw is represented in France mainly by the Transactive Company, but doesn’t offer (as yet) comprehensive access to French Law.

Free Internet Services

Legifrance is offering the whole content of the ‘ Journal officiel ‘ since 1990, and also the consolidated text of every Acts ( Lois ) and decrees ( décrets ) since 1978, and some (the most important) of them from before. The oldest one is from 1536! Note that the Official Gazettes sites offer several other services, including, in English, Info-Financiere.fr (regulated information on listed companies)

French cases : researching docket sheets and full text, 2007
Official guides to French law and French case law — in English
Indemnifying personal injury in France : tools for calculating damages, 2006

The global and open initiative between several universities and public services created the unofficial portal Droit.org , with a page dedicated to all the works on French Law in English language .

(English Translations)

Printed Sources

French Law, Constitution and Selective Legislation, Henry P. De Vries, Nina M. Galston, Regina B. Loening : Transnational Juris Publications, Inc., New York, 1988, ISBN 978-0929179001
Sourcebook on French Law, by Pollard David, Cavendish Publishing Ltd, 1998, ISBN 1-85941187-8
The Making of Law: An Ethnography of the Conseil d’Etat, Bruno Latour, John Wiley & Sons, 2014, ISBN 978-0745673714
French Legal Method, Eva Steiner, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-1841741857
Introduction to French Law, George A. Bermann, Etienne Picard, Kluwer Law International, 2012, ISBN 978-9041140005
French Administrative Law and the Common-law World, Bernard Schwartz, The Lawbook Exchange, 2011, ISBN 978-1584777045
The constitution of France: a contextual analysis, Sophie Boyron, Oxford Portland Or. 2013, ISBN 978-1-8411-3735-3

Internet Sources in English

They are rare and never officially binding. Nevertheless, the official portal Legifrance offers nine codes (out of more than seventy-five) and two main acts http://legifrance.gouv.fr/Traductions/en-English : Civil law, Civil procedure law, Intellectual Property law, Post and Telecommunication’s law, Insurance law, Procurement contract law, Criminal law, Criminal procedure, Trade law and Consumer law. Some institutions, offer unofficial translations of legal materials: see http://legifrance.gouv.fr/Traductions/en-English/Translations-from-institutional-websites.

You can see also the works of Harvard Law School Library ( French Legal Research guide ), Mirela Roznovschi ( NYU ), and “French Law in action” Claire Germain (Cornell Law School).

Case Law

(French)

Paid Subscriptions

Since 2002, the ” Service Public de Diffusion du Droit par l’Internet ” (Public service of Dissemination of Law through the Internet) provides caselaw of the three supreme courts ( Cour de cassation, Conseil d’Etat, Conseil constitutionnel ). The decisions are available in full text since 1986, and in selection from the early 1960s. Private vendors offer practically the same services, improved by scholars’ comments, with associated fees ( Lamyline.com or WKF – Wolters Kluwer France ; Lexbase ; Juripro (now part of Thomson). For the other courts (Courts of Appeal) a fee-based service is available from Jurisdata for selected decisions from 1980.

Free Internet Services

Legifrance gives the list of official websites proposing case law . More efficient lists or access methods to caselaw are here on the Jurisguide (in French Paris I) or on ServiceDoc.info (in French, Stephane Cottin).

(English Translations)

English translations of French case law are scarce. There are a few periodicals, however, that publish English summaries of case law. The Constitutional council has been providing English summaries of its caselaw since 1989 in its Yearbook (ed. Dalloz). Some international organizations may offer some selected caselaw. A good example is the International Association of Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions in the Recueil de décisions des hautes jurisdictions administratives / Selection of decisions of Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions, or for the Commission for Democracy through law ( Venice commission ) in his Bulletin on Constitutional Case-Law and the Codices Database .

The Institute of Global Law (Pr. Basil Markesinis, University College of London) gives short summaries of French legal caselaw. The English translations of legal decisions include cases from the Conseil d’Etat , theCour de Cassation and the Conseil Constitutionnel , the latter of which provides directly through its website some English-translated full text of decisions: click here .

Law Faculties

Directory of French universities
Directory of the AMUE (Agency for the Mutualization of the Universities, English access )
Campus France (Studying in France)

Law Libraries

The most important law library in France is Cujas (University of Paris Pantheon-Sorbonne). The whole catalog of the library (4 million items) is online. Others libraries have electronic access, including the National Library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France , ( direct access to the selection of legal resources ), or for example, Sciences-Po Paris (Library) .

Literature

Google Book Search on French Law

LC Classification: KJV233 .E43 2006
Dewey Class No.: 349.44 (22nd ed.)

Library of Congress Subject Heading: Law — France (idem on OpenLibrary.org )

General

French Legal System, by Catherine Elliott, Catherine Vernon, Eric Jeanpierre, New York : Longman, 2006, 376 pages , ISBN 978-1405811613
French Legal System, by Andrew West, Yvon Desdevises, Alain Fenet, Oxford University Press, 2005, 377 pages, ISBN 0-406-90323-9
French Legal Method, by Eva Steiner, Blackstone Press, 2002, 254 pages, ISBN 1 84174185 X
A History of French Public Law (Law Classic) by J. B. Brissaud (Paperback – Aug 2001) ISBN 978-1587981012
Learning French Through The Law, by Vivian Grosswald Curran, Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburg School of Law, A publication of the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law, Columbia University. 300 pages, ISBN 0-9650295-0-6
Principles of French Law, by John Bell , Sophie Boyron, Simon Whittaker, Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-19876395-6, a second edition 2000 is available ISBN 978-0198763956, and a third one published in march 2008, ISBN 978-0199541393
French substantive law, by Dadomo Christian and Farran, Sweet & Maxwell Ltd, 1996, ISBN 0421525509
Introduction to French Law, by Dickson Brice, Financial Times Prentice Hall (a Pearson Education company), 1994, ISBN 0273601407

Business Law

French Business Law in a Box (CD-ROM – Sep 1, 2006) ISBN 978-1905507375
French Arbitration Law and Practice by Jean-Louis Delvolve (Hardcover – Oct 2003) ISBN 978-9041122254

Civil Law

The French Civil Code by John H. Crabb (Translator) 2002, Kluwer Law International; ISBN 90 6544797 0
French Property and Inheritance Law: Principles and Practice by Henry Dyson (Paperback – Oct 25, 2003) ISBN : 978-0199254750

Constitutional and Administrative Law

French Administrative Law And the Common-law World by Bernard Schwartz and Arthur T., II Vanderbilt (Hardcover – Dec 30, 2006) ISBN 978-1584777045
French Administrative Law : L. Neville Brown, John S. Bell With the Assistance of Jean-Michel Galabert, 1998, Oxford Univ Pr, ISBN 0198765134

Criminal Law

The French Penal Code of 1994 As Amended As of January 1, 1999 (American Series of Foreign Penal Codes, 31) by Edward A. Tomlinson 1999) Fred B Rothman & Co, ISBN 0837700531
French Criminal Law by Catherine Elliott (Paperback – May 2001) ISBN : 978-1903240304

Law Dictionaries

Dictionnaire juridique français-anglais / anglais-français: Law Dictionary French-English/English-French, by Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson et alii, ed. Dalloz, 2004, ISBN 978-2247058228

The most common French law dictionary is Vocabulaire Juridique, by Gérard Cornu, ed. PUF, 2007, ISBN 978-2130559863

An online glossary of French-English Legal terms can be found in the virtual Law Faculty of Lyon III.

A comprehensive list of French legal glossaries (books and online) is on the website of Emmanuel Barthe (Precisement.org)

Citation

There is no official method of legal citation in French. Private and public editors have their own systems and their own abbreviations. However, on this excellent website Jurisguide, you will find some examples and practical exercises of translation of French legal citations:

Exercise about citation and bibliography on Jurisguide
Abbreviations on Jurisguide

At the European level, some initiative has to be mentioned: the ” Code de rédaction interinstitutionnel ” (communitarian law) ( English version ).

Discussion Lists and Blogs

Several French law lists have been created. Most of them are not really discussion lists, but one-way lists. Discussion lists, properly speaking, can be found here , but the most important flow of legal information goes now through blogs.

Five Usenet newsgroups concern legal matters:
news: fr.misc.droit, news: fr.misc.droit.famille (Family issues), news: fr.misc.droit.immobilier (Real Estate), news: fr.misc.droit.travail (Labor) and news: fr.misc.droit.internet. Caution: they accept only French-written news.

On twitter, you can find some useful “tweets” with the search on the words ” French Law “, or with (in French) the hash tag #droit .

Source - PTI

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