Characteristics of this Edition

The 2020 Trilingual Civil Code is up to date with the "loi de la réforme pour la Justice", the "loi PACTE" and the "loi Elan".

Up to date with the "loi PACTE" of 22 May 2019:

• obligation to respect the social responsibility of a company, taking into account the social and environmental challenges of its activity;
• possibility of introducing a raison d'être into the statutes: principles that the company adopts and to which it intends to allocate resources in the performance of its activity.

Up to date with the "loi de la réforme pour la Justice" of 23 March 2019:

• more than 80 articles of the Civil Code are impacted by this law: a reform that has a strong impact on civil law: parental authority, cohabitation, legal separation, protection of vulnerable adults, consent for medically assisted procreation, establishment of parentage by possession of state…;
• contentious divorces: simplify and speed up the divorce procedure by eliminating the conciliation phase in cases where the divorce is not pronounced by mutual consent;
• new procedure on changing matrimonial regime;
• develop methods for the amicable settlement of disputes (compulsory use of mediation or conciliation for certain disputes before being able to refer a matter to a judge).

CThis edition includes, in particular:

• the law of 22 May 2019 on the growth and transformation of companies, known as the loi PACTE; loi Pacte ;
• the law of 23 March 2019 on 2018-2022 programming and justice reform; réforme pour la justice ;
• the law of 23 November 2018 on the development of housing, development and digital technology, known as the loi Elan; loi Élan ;
• the law of 10 September 2018 for controlled immigration, an effective right of asylum and successful integration.

This first edition of the 2020 Trilingual Civil Code consists of:

• articles of the Civil Code annotated with introductory notes on the following themes: persons, family, property, inheritance, contracts, civil liability, special contracts and securities law.

Our Authors 

• Olivier Deshayes

  
• Thomas Genicon

  
• Michel Séjean

  
• Yves-Marie Laithier

  
• Stéphane Gerry-Vernières

  
• Laurent Leveneur

  
• Jonas Knetsch

  
• Jérôme Huet

  
• Jean-Baptiste Seube

  
• Hervé Lécuyer

  
• Frédérique Granet-Lambrechts

  
• Alain A. Levasseur

  

Olivier Deshayes

Olivier Deshayes

Olivier Deshayes is professor of Private Maw at Paris Nanterre university. He is co-director of the CEDCACE (center for study on business civil law and economic litigation).

Thomas Genicon

Thomas Genicon

Thomas Genicon is a professor at Panthéon-Assas University (Paris II) where he mainly teaches civil law. His research focuses specifically on contract law and more generally on the law of obligations. He was a visiting professor at the University of Padua and the University of Brescia (Italy). Member of the National Council of Universities and of several research groups, he thus participated in the group which drafted the Latin American Principles of Contract Law. He is a member of the legal sociology laboratory at Panthéon-Assas University (Paris II).

Michel Séjean

Michel Séjean

Michel Séjean is a graduate of the Higher Institute of Interpretation and Translation (ISIT Paris) and holds a Ph.D. in Law. He is a Professor at the Université Bretagne Sud. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Henri Capitant Law Review and a member of the Paris MENA Legal Club Scientific Board.

Yves-Marie Laithier

Yves-Marie Laithier

Yves-Marie Laithier is a professor at the Sorbonne Law School of (Paris I) where he teaches civil law and directs the master’s in comparative law. He is the author of numerous publications on the law of obligations and has co-written with O. Deshayes and T. Genicon a book relating to the reform of contract law, the general regime and proof of obligations (2nd ed., LexisNexis, 2018).

Stéphane Gerry-Vernières

Stéphane Gerry-Vernières

Stéphane Gerry-Vernières is a professor of private law and criminal sciences at the University of Grenoble Alpes. She teaches private law subjects mainly contract law, special contract law, business contract law and capital markets law. Her main research focuses on the sources of law. Interested in a sociological approach to law, she’s recently been working on issues related to soft law and the practice of legal actors. A research report on the Barémisation de la justice was recently published under her scientific direction.

Laurent Leveneur

Laurent LEVENEUR

Laurent Leveneur est professeur agrégé de droit (1989, major) à l’Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II) depuis 1992. Il est vice-président du conseil académique, directeur du Laboratoire de droit civil ainsi que du Master de droit privé général et du Master droit des assurances (en formation continue) de l’Université Paris II. Il a, par le passé, été responsable de l’action internationale dans la zone Asie, membre du conseil d’administration et président du département de droit privé de cette université. Il est l’auteur d’un grand nombre de publications en droit civil. En particulier, il assure la direction scientifique des annotations annuelles du Code civil et du Code de la consommation (Litec-Lexisnexis).

Jonas Knetsch

Jonas Knetsch

Jonas Knetsch is a professor at the University of Lyon (Jean Monnet Faculty of Law, Saint-Étienne) and a member of the Centre de Recherches Critiques sur le Droit. He has published extensively in civil liability and insurance law as well as on private international and comparative law. As an elected member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, he was the national reporter during the XXth General Congress of Comparative Law in Fukuoka (Japan) on medical liability. He is also a fellow of the European Centre of Tort and Insurance law (ECTIL) in Vienna. Lately, he has conducted research projects on civil liability and insurance law issues related to autonomous vehicles and on the interplay between French social security, private insurance and civil liability compensation.

Jérôme Huet

Jérôme Huet

Jérôme Huet is the author of a thesis titled “Contractual and civil liability: an attempt to delimit between two orders of responsibility” defended in 1979 at Panthéon-Assas University (Paris II). He has been a professor at the University of Rouen, at Paris Descartes University, at Panthéon-Assas University (Paris II), at La Réunion University and at Tulane University (United States). He’s been a member of the working group "Principles of European Contract Law (fr)" on the development of a European Civil Code of Obligations since 2002, and a research director at the 'Institut de la Chambre de commerce internationale, since 1994. In 2015, he retired and became professor emeritus at the University of Paris II. He is the author of numerous articles and notes on civil liability, contract law, computer law and copyright law

Jean-Baptiste Seube

Jean-Baptiste Seube

Jean-Baptiste Seube is a professor at the Faculty of Law and Economics of La Réunion. He is the honorary dean and directs the master’s degree in business law at that same faculty. In addition to numerous periodic chronicles, he has published several commentaries on contract law, property law and securities law. He regularly works in countries of the southwest Indian Ocean such as Madagascar, the Islamic Republic of the Comoros and Mauritius. He published several books there, supervised theses and initiated law programs.

Hervé Lécuyer

Hervé Lécuyer

Hervé Lécuyer is a professor at Panthéon-Assas University (Paris II). He mainly teaches civil law and insurance law. For three years he was a delegate at Saint Joseph University in Beirut where he directed the Centre d'études des droits du monde arabe.

Frédérique Granet-Lambrechts

Frédérique Granet-Lambrechts

Frédérique Granet-Lambrechts is a professor emeritus at the University of Strasbourg where, after a State doctorate defended under the supervision of Professor Danièle Huet-Weiller in 1981 on "conflicts of filiations", she specialized in French law and comparative law of individuals and families. She has been associated with reflections and preparatory work for several family law reforms, including the order of 4 July 2005 on the reform of parentage. She is the author of numerous publications in this area. She is also secretary general of the International Commission on Civil Status where she has carried out several studies in comparative law in her area of specialty.

Alain A. Levasseur

Alain A. Levasseur

Alain A. Levasseur was the associate director of international studies at the Louisiana State University - Center of Civil Law Studies, until he retired in June 2015. He holds an MCL from Tulane University Law School (1966). In 1998, the Université d’Aix Marseille Paul Cézanne bestowed on professor Levasseur the degree of Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa. He served as a Technical Assistant at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. from 1969 to 1970. Professor Levasseur maintains an active membership in the International Academy of Comparative Law, the American Association for the Comparative Study of Law, the Société de Législation Comparée, the Association Henri Capitant, the International Association of Legal Methodology and the American Law Institute.

Our Translators

The English translation was carried out by law professors David Gruning (Loyola University, New Orleans), Alain Levasseur and John R. Trahan (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge), as part of a project led by Juriscope (joint research unit between the CNRS and Université de Poitiers, Marie-Eugénie Laporte-Legeais). Expertise on English terminology was provided by Professor Michel Séjean (Université Bretagne Sud, Research Unit Lab-LEX).

The Arabic translation was carried out by Dr. Abir Ghanem Larson under the direction of Rany Sader, Attorney at Law (Sader Publishing).

• Abir Ghanem-Lasron

  
• David Gruning

  
• Rany Sader

  
• Michel Séjean

  
• John R. Trahan

  
• Alain A. Levasseur

  

Abir Ghanem-Lasron

Abir Ghanem-Larson

Abir Ghanem-Larson is a lawyer with a PhD in International Criminal Law. She’s been a member of the Beirut Bar since 2002. She’s also a journalist for the Al-Hayat newspaper, published in France, Lebanon and the United Kingdom. She’s authored numerous articles on Islam in France and on Arab writers in exile. She’s taught administrative law and constitutional law at French and Lebanese universities, and has translated the entire French Civil Code into Arabic.

David Gruning

David Gruning studied French at Wesleyan University, Grenoble and Middlebury College. He practiced French when studying civil law at Tulane University. French was his working language when teaching in Lyon, Paris and Montreal; and as a consultant in Madagascar and Morocco. Translation became part of his scholarly efforts. He started small with a translation of an op-ed article for the New York Times in 1975, followed a few year later by several legal translations at the behest of professor Alain Levasseur. He is a William L. Crowe distinguished law professor at Loyola University, New Orleans.

Rany Sader

Rany Sader est co-fondateur et associé directeur de SADER & Associates (Avocats et conseillers juridiques). Il est un auteur prolifique de livres juridiques, à l’instar du Guide de référence de la jurisprudence en matière de propriété intellectuelle et de publications en langues arabe, française et anglaise. En tant que Président du centre de recherche juridique SADER (affilié au groupe SADER, créé en 1863), il est l’auteur de plusieurs études publiées à l’échelle locale, régionale et internationale dans les domaines de l’édition, des technologies de l’information, de la propriété intellectuelle et de la formation juridique. En tant que fondateur et président du SADER Law Research Center (SLRC), Rany a dirigé et supervisé la réalisation de nombreux projets et a été le chef de file de nombreux projets Rule of Law dans la région, tels que dans le cadre du projet de numérisation des lois d’Abu Dhabi, de la création du portail juridique du ministère de la Justice des Émirats arabes unis et de la Bibliothèque judiciaire digitale du ministère des Affaires étrangères des Émirats arabes unis.

Michel Séjean

Michel Séjean

Michel Séjean is a graduate of the Higher Institute of Interpretation and Translation (ISIT Paris) and holds a Ph.D. in Law. He is a Professor at the Université Bretagne Sud. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Henri Capitant Law Review and a member of the Paris MENA Legal Club Scientific Board.

John R. Trahan

John R. Trahan

After serving as a law clerk to the late Judge Alvin B. Rubin, United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and engaging in private law practice for five years, Randall Trahan joined the law faculty at LSU. He has taught all of the courses in the “civil law” curriculum and has published various books or articles in mainly four fields – property, obligations, persons and family, successions and donations. He has participated in a number of projects involving the translation of French legal materials into English, including the French Civil Code, the new French law of obligations, and Gérard Cornu’s "Vocabulaire juridique".

Alain A. Levasseur

Alain A. Levasseur

Alain A. Levasseur was the associate director of international studies at the Louisiana State University - Center of Civil Law Studies, until he retired in June 2015. He holds an MCL from Tulane University Law School (1966). In 1998, the Université d’Aix Marseille Paul Cézanne bestowed on professor Levasseur the degree of Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa. He served as a Technical Assistant at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. from 1969 to 1970. Professor Levasseur maintains an active membership in the International Academy of Comparative Law, the American Association for the Comparative Study of Law, the Société de Législation Comparée, the Association Henri Capitant, the International Association of Legal Methodology and the American Law Institute.

Table of Contents

List of Introductory Notes

• PRELIMINARY TITLE: Stéphane Gerry-Vernières, Professor at the University Grenoble-Alpes
• THE LAW OF PERSONS: Inès Gallmeister, Associate Professor at the University Bretagne Sud
• FAMILY LAW: Frédérique Granet-Lambrechts, Professor at the University of Strasbourg
• PROPERTY LAW: Jean-Baptiste Seube, Professor at the University of La Réunion
• THE LAW OF SUCCESSIONS AND LIBERALITIES: Christophe Vernières, Professor at the University Grenoble-Alpes
• CONTRACT LAW: Laurent Leveneur, Professor at the University Paris II, Panthéon-Assas
• Thomas Genicon, Professor at the University Paris II
• Yves-Marie Laithier, Professor at the University Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne
• Olivier Deshayes, Professor at the University Paris Nanterre
• THE LAW OF EXTRA-CONTRACTUAL CIVIL LIABILITY: Jonas Knetsch, Professor at the University of Saint-Etienne
• MATRIMONIAL REGIMES: Hervé Lécuyer, Professor at the University Paris II, Panthéon-Assas
• SPECIAL LAW OF CONTRACTS: Jérôme Huet, Professor at the University Paris II, Panthéon-Assas
• THE LAW OF SECURITY RIGHTS: Michel Séjean, Professor at the University Bretagne Sud