Family Law in France: PACS, Divorce, Custody, Child Support

French family law is codified law. The rules on couples, separation, and children sit in the Code civil, and the practical starting point is almost always one specialist judge, the juge aux affaires familiales, who decides residence, parental authority, and financial contributions for children. The result is a system with far less local variation than a common law reader expects, but one where the precise article number, and the year it was last amended, does most of the work.

The other thing that surprises newcomers is how much of French family law now happens outside a courtroom. An uncontested divorce can be completed by private deed with a notaire and no judge. Child support is, by default, routed through a public intermediary rather than paid parent to parent. This section explains how each part of the area works and points you to the detailed page for it.

Information last verified on 20 July 2026. This page presents general legal information, not legal advice.

Forming a Couple: the PACS

Of the three ways of being a couple in France, the middle one, the PACS, is the most often misunderstood. It is a registered contract, free to conclude at the mairie of the couple's shared residence, or concluded for a fee at a notaire's office, which keeps the original document.

A surviving partner named as legatee in a will is fully exempt from French inheritance tax under CGI Article 796-0 bis, on the same footing as a spouse, and automatically keeps a free right to live in the couple's shared home for one year after the other partner's death, with the estate covering any rent owed. But a PACS partner is not an automatic legal heir, so without a will the survivor inherits nothing, and a PACS never opens a right to a survivor's pension in any scheme.

On adoption the gap has closed: since loi n. 2022-219 of 21 February 2022, in force from 23 February 2022, PACS partners and unmarried cohabiting couples can jointly adopt on the same conditions as married couples. Ending a PACS is light: joint declaration, one partner's unilateral declaration through a commissaire de justice, or automatically the moment either partner marries. Full detail is on PACS in France: How Civil Partnership Works, and What It Does Not Give You.

Ending a Marriage: Divorce by Mutual Consent

The dominant route for spouses who agree is the no-judge divorce. Since 1 January 2017, they can finalize it through a private deed signed by both spouses and their lawyers, then filed with a notaire, without appearing before a judge.

Two structural rules govern it. Each spouse must be represented by their own lawyer under Code civil Article 229-1: a single shared lawyer is not permitted and would put the agreement's validity at risk. And there is a timetable: the signed agreement is typically transmitted to the notaire within 7 days of signature, after which the notaire has 15 days to file it, which gives the agreement a certain date and enforceable force.

The route closes if a minor child asks to be heard by a judge, or if either spouse is under a legal protection regime such as curatelle or tutelle. A significant cost element is the droit de partage on dividing marital property, which fell to 1.80 percent on 1 January 2021 and to 1.10 percent on 1 January 2022, though a licitation (a forced buyout sale) stays at 2.50 percent. For spouses who do not agree, the no-fault route based on definitive breakdown now requires a separation period of 1 year, reduced from 2 years as of 1 January 2021. Both routes are set out on Divorce by Mutual Consent in France: The No-Judge Route and the Judicial Alternative.

Rebalancing After Divorce: the Prestation Compensatoire

Divorce ends the duty of support between spouses. What can survive it is a single rebalancing payment. Under Code civil Article 270, one spouse may be ordered to pay the other a compensatory payment meant to offset, as far as possible, the disparity the marriage's breakdown creates in their living conditions. Article 270 also sets its general form: the payment has a lump-sum character and generally takes the form of capital, with the amount fixed by the judge.

Article 271 lists what the judge weighs: each spouse's needs and resources, the length of the marriage, age and health, career sacrifices made for the household or the other spouse's career, the estimated patrimonial situation after the matrimonial regime is liquidated, and each spouse's retirement pension situation.

A lifelong periodic payment, the rente viagere, is the exception, and it is governed by Article 276 rather than Article 274 (which covers only the forms capital can take). A judge may order it only exceptionally, by specially motivated decision, when the recipient's age or health prevents them from meeting their own needs, Separately, a judge can refuse a compensatory payment entirely on equity grounds, including where the divorce is pronounced at the sole fault of the spouse asking for it. Tax treatment follows the timing: capital paid in cash within 12 months of the divorce judgment becoming final earns the paying spouse a 25 percent income tax reduction, capped at a base of 30,500 EUR, while capital paid over a longer period, or a rente, instead follows the pension alimentaire tax regime. The criteria are explained on Compensatory Payment on a French Divorce: How Prestation Compensatoire Works.

Children: Parental Authority Comes First

Everything about children in French law hangs off autorité parentale, and its default is joint exercise under Article 372 of the Code civil. The main exception concerns late filiation: where a second parent's filiation is legally established more than one year after the child's birth, that parent does not automatically share exercise and must obtain it through a joint declaration or a judge's decision.

Joint exercise works in practice because French law splits decisions in two. Routine decisions, the actes usuels, can be made by one parent alone; major decisions, the actes importants, require both parents' agreement.

The protective side of the regime has been reinforced. Since the loi Santiago of 18 March 2024, a criminal court convicting a parent of a crime or incestuous sexual assault against their own child, or of a crime against the other parent, must order total withdrawal of parental authority by default unless it gives specially motivated reasons to decide otherwise. Article 378-2 separately suspends a parent's exercise of parental authority and visitation rights as soon as that parent is prosecuted or placed under formal judicial investigation for rape or sexual assault of the child, or for a crime against the other parent, without waiting for a conviction, and Article 378-1 allows withdrawal on non-criminal grounds. See Autorite Parentale: Parental Authority Under French Family Law.

Where the Child Lives: Residence and Garde Alternee

Residence is a separate question from authority. Garde alternee, more precisely residence alternee, means the child lives alternately with each parent on a roughly equal basis. The juge aux affaires familiales can order it provisionally even where one parent objects: case law holds that parental disagreement alone is not enough to rule it out, and the judge must identify why the child's interest opposes it.

There is no presumption in its favour. A proposal to make alternating residence a legal presumption has been debated in Parliament but not adopted. Article 373-2-11 lists the factors a judge weighs, including each parent's prior involvement, the child's own feelings, and any violence between the parents.

Benefits follow their own logic. Since 1 December 2025, each parent of a child in alternating residence can claim their own complement de mode de garde (CMG), calculated on that parent's own income, rather than one payment being split. Allocations familiales are a different benefit and can be split fifty-fifty on a joint request using Cerfa form 14000, which is not possible for the CMG. See Garde Alternee in France: How Shared Custody and Alternating Residence Work.

Paying for the Child: Pension Alimentaire

Pension alimentaire is the child support one parent pays the other after separation, resting on Code civil Article 371-2. Two features catch people out. The obligation does not automatically end when a child turns 18: it continues while an adult child cannot support themselves. And since 1 January 2023 most pensions are paid automatically through ARIPA financial intermediation via the CAF or MSA, not directly between parents; both parents must jointly agree to opt out, and the opt out is barred entirely where violence is alleged.

Enforcement is criminal at the far end. Missing more than two months of court ordered payments is the offense of abandon de famille, punishable by up to two years in prison and a 15 000 euro fine. A pension can also be indexed to the cost of living. The mechanics are on Child Support in France (Pension Alimentaire): Rules, Payment, and Enforcement.

The amount comes from the Ministry of Justice bareme, which subtracts a flat amount tied to the RSA for a single person from the paying parent's net monthly income, then applies a percentage set by the number of children and the custody arrangement. That floor, 652 euros as of the 1 April 2026 revaluation, tracks the RSA and changes when the RSA is revalued, so it should never be treated as permanent. The bareme is indicative only: the juge aux affaires familiales is not bound by it. Worked examples are on How to Calculate Pension Alimentaire in France: The Official Bareme.

Where to Start

If a marriage is ending, read the mutual consent divorce page first and the compensatory payment page second, because the second only makes sense once you know which divorce route applies. If children are involved, read parental authority before residence, and residence before child support, since each one constrains the next. Other areas of French law are indexed on the France legal guide.