Garde a Vue in France: Duration, Rights and the 2024 Lawyer Reform

Few phrases in French criminal procedure are searched as anxiously as garde à vue. It usually surfaces when someone has been taken to a police or gendarmerie station, or when a family member has been and nobody at home knows how long that can last or what is supposed to happen next. The measure is precisely defined and tightly bounded, and knowing where those boundaries sit removes a good deal of the uncertainty.

This page explains what a garde à vue is under French law, how long each category can run, which rights attach to it, and what changed on 1 July 2024 when the rules on a lawyer's presence were rewritten. It is an explanation of the legal framework, not guidance on how to conduct yourself in an investigation. Anyone actually in this situation should speak to a lawyer, which is itself one of the rights described below.

Information last verified on 21 July 2026. This page presents general legal information, not legal advice.

What a garde à vue actually is

Article 62-2 of the Code de procédure pénale defines it as a coercive measure decided by an officier de police judiciaire, under the supervision of the judicial authority, by which a person is kept at the disposal of investigators. It can only be applied where there are one or more plausible reasons to suspect that the person has committed or attempted to commit a crime or an offence punishable by imprisonment.

That threshold does real work. A matter carrying only a fine cannot support a garde à vue. Nor can suspicion alone: the measure must also be the sole means of achieving at least one of six purposes set out in the same article.

Those six purposes are to carry out investigations requiring the person's presence or participation, to ensure the person is brought before the procureur, to prevent evidence being altered or destroyed, to prevent pressure on witnesses, victims or their families, to prevent concerted action with accomplices, and to bring the offence to an end. If none applies, the person should be heard as a free suspect rather than detained.

Twenty-four hours, and the one extension

The default duration cannot exceed 24 hours. It runs from the moment the person is deprived of liberty, not from the moment the paperwork is completed.

Article 63 allows one extension of up to 24 further hours, taking the total to 48. Three conditions attach. The procureur de la République must authorise it in a written and reasoned decision. The suspected offence must be a crime or an offence punishable by at least one year of imprisonment. And the extension must be the only way to achieve one of the article 62-2 purposes, or to allow the person to be brought before the judicial authority. The procureur can make the authorisation conditional on the person being presented to them first.

For the overwhelming majority of cases, 48 hours is the ceiling. The longer regimes below are exceptions tied to defined categories of offence, not a general power to hold someone for days.

The longer regimes, and the distinction that is routinely got wrong

Two separate provisions extend garde à vue beyond 48 hours, and they are frequently conflated in secondary sources. They are not the same rule and they do not cover the same offences.

Organised crime and drug trafficking, article 706-88. For offences falling within article 706-73, with the exception of those at its 21°, the juge des libertés et de la détention or the juge d'instruction may authorise two further extensions of 24 hours each, or a single further extension of 48 hours where the foreseeable duration of the remaining investigations justifies it. Either route reaches a 96 hour maximum. The magistrate need not grant both extensions, so an organised-crime garde à vue can stop at 72 hours; 96 is the ceiling, not the norm. A separate provision added in 2025, article 706-88-2, allows one further 24 hours where narcotic substances are established to be present in the body of the person held, on a decision of the juge des libertés et de la détention. That is what can take a narcotics case to a total of 120 hours. This article also allows the lawyer's intervention to be deferred, for up to 48 hours, or 72 hours in certain cases.

Terrorism, article 706-88-1. Where the first elements of the investigation or of the custody itself show a serious risk of an imminent terrorist act in France or abroad, or where the requirements of international cooperation impose it, the juge des libertés et de la détention may exceptionally order a further 24 hour extension, renewable once, for a person held on the terrorism offences listed at 11° of article 706-73. That is what produces the 144 hour, or six day, maximum.

So the shorthand is simple: 96 hours is organised crime and trafficking, 144 hours is terrorism. A page that describes 96 hours as the terrorism rule has merged two different articles.

The 2024 reform: no questioning without the lawyer

The most consequential recent change concerns what happens inside the interview room. Article 32 of loi n° 2024-364 of 22 April 2024 rewrote the relevant provisions, and they apply to measures taken from 1 July 2024. The reform transposed European Union requirements on effective access to a lawyer, after France's previous regime was found wanting on that point.

Under the old text, a lawyer had to be notified, but once two hours had elapsed from that notification, investigators could begin questioning whether or not the lawyer had arrived. That carence window has been removed. The current article 63-4-2 states that where the person has asked for a lawyer to attend, they cannot be heard on the facts without the chosen or appointed lawyer present, unless they expressly waive that assistance and the waiver is recorded in the procedure. The lawyer may take notes during interviews and confrontations.

A two-hour period still exists elsewhere in the scheme, but it does a different job. Under article 63-3-1, if the chosen lawyer cannot be contacted or states that they cannot attend within two hours of being notified, the judicial police officer must immediately ask the bâtonnier to appoint a duty lawyer, and must tell the person in custody. The clock now triggers an appointment, rather than permission to begin without anyone.

When a lawyer's presence can still be deferred

The right is strong but not absolute. Article 63-4-2 allows the presence of the lawyer at interviews and confrontations to be deferred, exceptionally, on the application of the judicial police officer, and only by a written and reasoned decision. The grounds are narrow: compelling reasons arising from the particular circumstances of the investigation, either to avoid a situation seriously compromising criminal proceedings, or to prevent a grave and imminent harm to a person's life, liberty or physical integrity.

The authority differs with the seriousness of the case. The procureur de la République can defer the lawyer's presence for a maximum of 12 hours. Where the person is held for a crime or an offence punishable by five years' imprisonment or more, the juge des libertés et de la détention may, on the procureur's application, extend the deferral beyond the twelfth hour and up to the twenty-fourth. Both decisions must be written and reasoned by reference to precise and specific facts of the case.

Where a deferral has been authorised, the same authority may also decide that the lawyer cannot consult the records of the person's interviews for an identical period.

The rights that must be notified

Article 63-1 requires that the person be informed immediately, in a language they understand, of a defined list of matters. These include the placing in garde à vue and its possible duration, the offence suspected together with its presumed date and place, and the reason justifying the measure by reference to article 62-2.

The list of rights covers the right to have a close relative and an employer informed, and consular authorities where the person is a foreign national. It covers the right to be examined by a doctor, who assesses whether the person's state of health is compatible with continued détention. It covers the right to be assisted by a lawyer, which can be asked for at the outset and at any moment during the measure. It covers the right to consult specified documents in the file, and the right to an interpreter, including a sign language interpreter.

Finally it covers the right, during questioning after making a statement of identity, to make statements, to answer questions put, or to remain silent. Notification is recorded in the procedure and signed by the person concerned.

Under article 63-2, a request to have a relative or employer informed must ordinarily be acted on within three hours, unless circumstances make it impossible, and the procureur may defer or refuse notification where the needs of the investigation require it.

Paying for the lawyer

The right to a lawyer is of little use if the fee is out of reach, and French law addresses this directly. Aide juridictionnelle covers not only court proceedings but also a lawyer's intervention in non-judicial procedures, and garde à vue is expressly listed among them.

Whether the state pays all or part depends on the applicant's revenu fiscal de reference and their assets, measured against ceilings that are re-indexed each January. Our page on aide juridictionnelle sets out the current bands, the asset limits, and how an application is made and appealed.

What happens when the garde à vue ends

A garde à vue is an investigative measure, not a punishment and not a verdict. When it ends, the person may simply be released without any charge, may be released with a future court date, may be summoned under one of the alternative procedures the procureur can choose, or may be brought before a magistrate.

Being placed in garde à vue therefore says nothing final about guilt. It records that investigators had plausible reasons to suspect an imprisonable offence and that one of the six statutory purposes required the person to be held. For wider context on the French legal system and the other guides in this series, see our France legal guides.