Eviction in France (Expulsion Locataire): The Procedure and the Six Week Trap

Almost everything written in French about expulsion locataire opens with the same sentence: since the loi Kasbarian of 2023 the tenant has six weeks to pay after a commandement de payer. For a large share of the people reading it, that sentence is wrong, and it is wrong in the direction that costs them the most. If the lease was already running on 29 July 2023, the period that applies is the one written into its own clause résolutoire, which in almost every lease drafted before that date is two months, and someone acting on the six week version is either conceding time they still have or missing a deadline they thought they had.

Everything that follows takes the procedure in order, from the first formal document through to the point where a commissaire de justice can actually put someone out of the property, and marks where the two versions of the rule diverge. The sequence is the same whichever period applies. Only the length of one step changes, and only for some leases.

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

The six week rule does not apply to every lease

Article 24 of loi n° 89-462 du 6 juillet 1989 governs termination of a residential lease for unpaid rent. Article 10 of loi n° 2023-668 du 27 juillet 2023, the text usually called the loi Kasbarian or Kasbarian Bergé, rewrote it so that a clause résolutoire produces its effect six weeks after an unsuccessful commandement de payer, rather than the two months that had applied since 1989.

The law entered into force on 29 July 2023. The question that immediately followed was what happens to the millions of leases already running on that date, each containing a clause résolutoire drafted around the old two month period.

The Cour de cassation answered it on 13 June 2024 in avis n° 24-70.002, on a request from the tribunal de proximité de Trévoux. Its holding is narrow and precise: the provisions of article 10 of loi n° 2023-668, in so far as they modify the minimum period granted to the tenant to pay after service of a commandement de payer targeting the clause résolutoire inserted in the lease, do not have the effect of modifying the délais appearing in the contractual clauses of leases in force at the date the law entered into force.

In practice that means the operative period is the one written in the lease. A lease concluded before 29 July 2023, with a clause résolutoire stating two months, keeps two months. A lease concluded or renewed after that date, drafted to the current text, runs on six weeks. The document to check is the lease, not a news article about the reform.

This matters in both directions. A tenant told they have six weeks may stop trying to assemble the money two weeks early. A landlord who serves an assignation counting six weeks on an older lease risks having the procedure challenged on the timing.

Step one: the commandement de payer

The procedure for arrears begins with a commandement de payer, served by a commissaire de justice, the profession that replaced huissiers de justice in 2022. A letter from the landlord, however firm, is not a commandement de payer and does not start any period running.

Article 24 sets out what the document must contain, on pain of nullity. It has to state the period the tenant is given to pay, itemise the sums claimed showing the breakdown between rent and charges, reproduce the relevant statutory provisions, and inform the tenant of the possibility of applying to the fonds de solidarité pour le logement and of seeking assistance.

The commissaire de justice must also notify the commission de coordination des actions de prévention des expulsions locatives, the CCAPEX, where the tenant is at least two months behind. That notification is not a formality for the reader to ignore: it is the trigger that puts the departmental prevention machinery in contact with the household, and it is usually the fastest route to a solution that is not a court hearing.

Step two: the waiting period, and what ends it

During the six weeks or two months, the position is simple. Paying in full everything covered by the commandement stops the clause résolutoire operating and ends the matter. Partial payment does not.

Two things are worth noting. First, the sums claimed are sometimes wrong, and a commandement built on an incorrect balance can be contested. Deposit deductions, charges never regularised and disputed repairs all end up in these figures. The rules on what a landlord may retain are set out on the security deposit page.

Second, this window is when the social intervention actually works. The fonds de solidarité pour le logement, the CCAPEX and the local ADIL exist precisely for it, and an agreed plan reached here avoids everything below.

Step three: the assignation and the hearing

If the period expires unpaid, the landlord instructs a commissaire de justice to serve an assignation, a summons before the juge des contentieux de la protection at the tribunal judiciaire covering the property. This judge, created in 2020, handles residential tenancy disputes and over indebtedness.

Article 24 requires the assignation to be notified to the prefet at least six weeks before the hearing, so that the prefectural services can carry out a social enquiry and place the file before the CCAPEX. Where the landlord is a legal person, other than a société civile made up exclusively of relatives up to the fourth degree, the assignation cannot be served until two months after the CCAPEX notification.

The hearing is the decisive point. The tenant should attend or be represented. Judgment can be given in the tenant's absence, and the arguments that carry weight, an incorrect balance, an irregular commandement, a serious housing defect, a repayment capacity, are arguments nobody makes for a party who is not there.

Step four: délais de grâce and suspension of the clause

The judge is not confined to declaring the lease terminated. Under article 24 of the 1989 law, which applies the mechanism of article 1343-5 of the Code civil to rent arrears with its own longer ceiling, the judge may grant time to pay up to a maximum of three years, and may suspend the effects of the clause résolutoire while that schedule runs.

Loi n° 2023-668 tightened this. The suspension is no longer given readily on the judge's own initiative, and it normally requires the tenant to be in a position to clear the debt and to have resumed paying the current rent in full before the hearing date. Resuming the current rent, even without touching the arrears, is therefore the single most useful thing a tenant can do before the hearing.

If the schedule is respected, article 24 provides that the clause de résiliation de plein droit is deemed not to have operated. The lease survives. If a single instalment is missed, the termination revives and the file moves straight on.

Step five: judgment and the commandement de quitter les lieux

Where the judge orders the tenant out, the decision is not self executing. A commissaire de justice serves a commandement de quitter les lieux, and article L412-1 of the Code des procédures civiles d'exécution provides that eviction from an inhabited dwelling cannot take place until two months after that document.

The two months are not guaranteed. The same article allows the judge to reduce or remove the period, in particular where the occupants entered by manoeuvres, threats, voies de fait or coercion, or where a rehousing procedure has failed because of the occupant. Conversely, article L412-3 lets the judge grant additional time, from three months to three years, where rehousing cannot be found in normal conditions.

Step six: the concours de la force publique

If the occupant is still in place when the period expires, the commissaire de justice cannot force entry alone. A request goes to the prefet for the concours de la force publique.

Article L153-1 of the Code des procédures civiles d'exécution states that the State is required to lend its assistance to the enforcement of judgments and other enforceable titles, and that a refusal opens a right to compensation. Silence for two months amounts to a refusal. The landlord can then claim against the State, through the prefet and if necessary the tribunal administratif, but the occupant is still in the property while that runs. This step is where French eviction files spend most of their time.

Where the trêve hivernale fits

Between 1 November and 31 March, article L412-6 of the Code des procédures civiles d'exécution stays execution of eviction measures. It suspends only that final step. The commandement de payer can be served, the hearing held, the judgment given and the commandement de quitter les lieux delivered throughout the winter, and the arrears continue to build. The exceptions, and the one most commonly summarised wrongly, are set out on the winter eviction ban page.

What loi n° 2023-668 changed, and what was struck down

Beyond the six week period, the 2023 law created a criminal offence of entering another person's premises by manoeuvres, threats, voies de fait or coercion, and of remaining there, punishable by two years imprisonment and a 30,000 euro fine. It also made a clause résolutoire compulsory in residential leases and generalised the CCAPEX.

One provision did not survive. In décision n° 2023-853 DC of 26 July 2023 the Conseil constitutionnel upheld most of the law but censured its article 7, which had amended article 1244 of the Code civil to relieve the owner of an unlawfully occupied building of maintenance obligations and of liability for damage caused by its ruin. The Conseil found the exemption disproportionate because it also deprived injured third parties of a remedy against the owner, leaving them only an occupant who may be unidentified and uninsured. The ordinary law of building maintenance liability therefore still applies.

Evictions that are not about arrears

Not every expulsion follows unpaid rent. A landlord may also end a lease at term by congé for sale, for personal or family occupation, or for a legitimate and serious reason, subject to the notice rules on the tenant notice period page. A congé that is irregular in form or motive does not terminate anything, and an occupant who stays after a valid congé is dealt with by the same judicial route described above rather than by any faster procedure.

More background on French housing and legal topics is collected on the France legal information hub, including how rent may lawfully be increased during a tenancy and what the move in inventory is used for when the dispute turns on the state of the property.

Disclaimer

This page provides general information about the French expulsion procedure for educational purposes. It is not legal advice and it is not an assessment of any reader's own tenancy, arrears or proceedings. The applicable délai turns on the wording of the clause résolutoire in the individual lease and on its date, and the outcome of any hearing turns on the facts. Verify current rules against service-public.gouv.fr or Légifrance, or consult an ADIL adviser or a qualified French avocat, before acting on anything set out here.