You married in Manchester, built a life in the Dordogne, and now the marriage is over. You live in France, your spouse may already be back in the United Kingdom, the house is in your joint names, the children are at a French school, and you have just received papers — or you are wondering which papers to send first. Since Brexit, divorce between France and the United Kingdom no longer runs on the shared European rails that used to carry jurisdiction, applicable law and recognition of decrees almost automatically. The questions pile up fast: can you divorce in France at all, will the French judge apply French law or English law, what happens to the French house, how is the lump sum worked out, where do the children live, and if one of you has already divorced in London, does that decree count in Paris? This guide answers each of those questions in order. It explains which French court — the juge aux affaires familiales, the family judge who sits within the tribunal judiciaire, the local civil court — can hear your case, how the court chooses between French and English divorce law, what the financial and parental consequences look like under French rules, and how a decree obtained in England and Wales is recognised and enforced in France now that the United Kingdom is a third state outside the European Union. Every decisive rule is quoted from the official text, every figure comes from the statute or the case law, and every refusal or bill described here comes with the remedy that challenges it.
I. Divorcing through the French courts after Brexit: which judge hears British spouses and which law decides your divorce
A. Which French court can hear your divorce when you are British and living in France
Brexit did not close the doors of the French family courts to British residents. If you live in France, you can in most cases petition for divorce in France, whether your spouse is British, French or of another nationality, and whether your spouse still lives in France or has returned to the United Kingdom. What Brexit changed is the legal instrument that distributes cases between countries. Before the end of the transition period, jurisdiction in matrimonial matters between France and the United Kingdom was shared under the Brussels II bis Regulation, so a divorce pronounced in one country circulated easily in the other. Since 1 January 2021, the United Kingdom is treated as a non-member state, and the French judge decides jurisdiction under the Brussels II ter Regulation — Council Regulation (EU) 2019/1111, which recast the European jurisdiction and recognition rules — for cases within its scope, and under French domestic rules of international jurisdiction for the rest. In practice, the habitual residence of the spouses in France remains the great gateway: a couple living in France, or a spouse living in France with the children, will normally find a French court competent. The practical question is then which court within France, and the answer is given by Article 1070 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides that “Le juge aux affaires familiales territorialement compétent est : – le juge du lieu où se trouve la résidence de la famille ; – si les parents vivent séparément, le juge du lieu de résidence du parent avec lequel résident habituellement les enfants mineurs en cas d’exercice en commun de l’autorité parentale, ou du lieu de résidence du parent qui exerce seul cette autorité ; – dans les autres cas, le juge du lieu où réside celui qui n’a pas pris l’initiative de la procédure. En cas de demande conjointe, le juge compétent est, selon le choix des parties, celui du lieu où réside l’une ou l’autre.” The same article adds a protective option for money claims, since “lorsque le litige porte seulement sur la pension alimentaire, la contribution à l’entretien et l’éducation de l’enfant, la contribution aux charges du mariage ou la prestation compensatoire, le juge compétent peut être celui du lieu où réside l’époux créancier ou le parent qui assume à titre principal la charge des enfants, même majeurs.” The territorial rule is frozen at one date, because “La compétence territoriale est déterminée par la résidence au jour de la demande.” For a British reader, that means the move you make just before filing can decide the court: file while the family home is still in the Dordogne and the Dordogne judge hears the case; wait until everyone has left for Kent and the French court may have to be persuaded on other grounds. If you file jointly with your spouse — a demande conjointe, a joint petition — you may choose either spouse’s court, which often simplifies life when one of you has already moved back across the Channel.
French law offers four doors into divorce, and you should know which one you are walking through before you choose a court. Article 229 of the Civil Code states that “Le divorce peut être prononcé en cas : -soit de consentement mutuel, dans le cas prévu au 1° de l’article 229-2 ; -soit d’acceptation du principe de la rupture du mariage ; -soit d’altération définitive du lien conjugal ; -soit de faute.” The first route, divorce by mutual consent without a judge — the acte sous signature privée contresigné par avocats, a private agreement countersigned by each spouse’s lawyer and filed with a notaire, the French public officer who authenticates deeds — is the fastest and cheapest when you agree on everything, but it is closed in two situations set out in Article 229-2: “Les époux ne peuvent consentir mutuellement à leur divorce par acte sous signature privée contresigné par avocats lorsque : 1° Le mineur, informé par ses parents de son droit à être entendu par le juge dans les conditions prévues à l’article 388-1 , demande son audition par le juge ; 2° L’un des époux se trouve placé sous l’un des régimes de protection prévus au chapitre II du titre XI du présent livre.” So if your child asks to be heard by the judge, or if one spouse is under a protection regime such as tutelle or curatelle, the private agreement route is barred and you must go before the judge. The fault route — divorce pour faute — requires proof, because Article 242 provides that “Le divorce peut être demandé par l’un des époux lorsque des faits constitutifs d’une violation grave ou renouvelée des devoirs et obligations du mariage sont imputables à son conjoint et rendent intolérable le maintien de la vie commune.” Adultery, violence, abandonment of the family home or a sustained refusal to contribute can qualify, but the facts must be proved by letters, messages, bailiff’s reports, medical certificates or witness statements, and the judge weighs them strictly. The middle route, often the most useful for British spouses who simply drifted apart, is divorce for definitive alteration of the marital bond: Article 238 states that “L’altération définitive du lien conjugal résulte de la cessation de la communauté de vie entre les époux, lorsqu’ils vivent séparés depuis un an lors de la demande en divorce.” One year of separate lives at the date of the petition is therefore enough, with no need to prove anyone’s wrongdoing, and the statute adds that “Si le demandeur a introduit l’instance sans indiquer les motifs de sa demande, le délai caractérisant l’altération définitive du lien conjugal est apprécié au prononcé du divorce.” That procedural detail matters: you can file without stating your ground and let the one-year period run until judgment. If the court declares itself incompetent, or the greffe — the court clerk’s office — refuses to register your petition, do not walk away. A wrong filing can be refiled before the correct juge aux affaires familiales, a plea of incompetence can be appealed, and where urgency exists — a spouse emptying accounts or about to sell the house — interim protective measures can be sought within the proceedings. Limitation and timing traps are real but manageable: jurisdiction is assessed at the date of the petition, evidence of residence must cover that date, and every supporting document in English should be filed with a certified French translation, because an untranslated bundle invites adjournment.
B. French divorce law or English divorce law: how the court picks the law that governs your split
Getting into the French court is only half the battle; the next question is which country’s divorce law the judge will apply to your marriage. Many British spouses assume that because they married in England, or because both hold British passports, English law must follow them to France. It does not work that way. For divorce itself, the French judge applies the Rome III Regulation — Council Regulation (EU) No 1259/2010 on enhanced cooperation in the law applicable to divorce — to which France is a participating state and the United Kingdom never took part. The regulation lets spouses choose their applicable law within limits, and failing a valid choice, points to the law of habitual residence and then to the law of last common habitual residence. For a British couple long settled in France, that cascade will very often land on French law, even if the wedding took place in Leeds and both passports are British. That outcome surprises some clients, but it is usually good news in practical terms: French divorce procedure is well-trodden, the local judge knows the local property market, and orders about a French house or children schooled in France are directly enforceable without crossing the Channel. Where the spouses made a valid choice-of-law agreement in favour of English law before the breakdown — a clause that must satisfy strict formal conditions — the French judge can apply English divorce law as a foreign law, with expert evidence of its content. You should therefore dig out any marriage contract, any choice-of-law clause and any English prenuptial agreement now, because they shape the argument, even though an English prenup does not bind a French judge the way it might persuade an English one.
Matrimonial property — the régime matrimonial, the set of rules that says who owns what — follows its own track and deserves separate attention, because it decides the fate of the French house and the savings. Couples married without a contract fall under a default regime that depends on the date of marriage and the applicable convention: for marriages since 29 January 2019, the European Matrimonial Property Regulation (EU) 2016/1103 supplies the conflicts rule in participating states, while older marriages are governed by the Hague Convention of 1978 where it applies. British couples who married in England without any contract are commonly treated as married under a separation-of-property logic for English purposes, yet the French court may characterise the position differently when French law governs the effects of the marriage. This is precisely the kind of point on which files are won or lost, and it must be pleaded explicitly with the marriage certificate, any contract, and a clear timeline of residences since the wedding. The maintenance side — who pays whom each month — is governed by the Hague Protocol of 2007, which generally applies the law of the creditor’s habitual residence, so a spouse remaining in France with the children will usually see French maintenance scales applied. Do not confuse these layers: the law governing the divorce itself, the law governing the property regime, and the law governing maintenance can be three different laws in one file, and each must be identified, evidenced and argued. If the judge applies the wrong law, or refuses to apply a properly evidenced foreign law, that is a ground of appeal, and the appeal must be lodged within the strict one-month period from service of the judgment for most cases. The paperwork burden is real — apostilled English marriage certificates, sworn translations, proof of habitual residence through tax notices, school certificates and utility bills — but it is the paperwork that secures the right law, and the right law can be worth tens of thousands of euros on the house and the lump sum.
II. Money, house and children, then the cross-Channel paper trail: what your divorce settles and how to make a UK decree count in France
A. The French house, the lump sum and the children: property, prestation compensatoire and residence after divorce
For most British couples in France, the divorce file has three financial pillars: the house, the lump sum that balances living standards, and the arrangements for the children. The house is divided through liquidation of the matrimonial property regime — the notaire-led accounting exercise that lists the assets, values them, settles who owes whom, and organises the sale or the buyout. If one spouse wishes to keep the house, the standard mechanism is the soulte, the balancing cash payment made by the spouse who keeps an asset worth more than his or her share, often funded by a fresh mortgage; if neither can or will keep it, the judge can order a judicial sale, the licitation, with the proceeds split according to each spouse’s rights. Valuations must be serious: two independent estate agents’ opinions or a formal expert valuation carry weight, while a figure invented for negotiation does not. Mortgage liability follows the loan contract, not the divorce judgment, so the spouse who leaves the house but stays on the loan remains liable to the bank until the loan is refinanced or repaid — a clause in the divorce agreement asking the bank to release you binds your former spouse to cooperate but does not bind the bank itself. Capital gains, property tax arrears and the costs of sale all feed into the liquidation accounts, and the notaire’s draft settlement — the projet d’état liquidatif — should be checked line by line before signature, because once homologated, the homologation being the judge’s approval that gives the agreement enforceable force, errors are painful to reopen.
The second pillar is the prestation compensatoire, the French lump sum whose purpose is widely misunderstood by British spouses who map it onto an English financial remedy order. The two are cousins, not twins. Article 270 of the Civil Code provides that “Le divorce met fin au devoir de secours entre époux.” — the duty of mutual support ends with the divorce — and continues: “L’un des époux peut être tenu de verser à l’autre une prestation destinée à compenser, autant qu’il est possible, la disparité que la rupture du mariage crée dans les conditions de vie respectives.” The key words are the disparity that the breakdown itself creates: the payment compensates the gap in living standards caused by the divorce, assessed at the date of divorce with an eye on foreseeable change. Article 271 then lists what the judge must weigh, stating that “La prestation compensatoire est fixée selon les besoins de l’époux à qui elle est versée et les ressources de l’autre en tenant compte de la situation au moment du divorce et de l’évolution de celle-ci dans un avenir prévisible.” and directing the judge to consider in particular the length of the marriage, the age and health of the spouses, professional qualifications and situations, the career sacrifices made for the children or for the other spouse’s career, the present and foreseeable capital and income after liquidation, existing and foreseeable rights, and respective pension positions. The Cour de cassation — France’s supreme court for civil matters, which quashes decisions that misapply the law — polices this assessment strictly. On 10 December 2025, in a much-noticed ruling on case number 24-13.557, the First Civil Chamber recalled that “Il résulte du premier de ces textes que l’un des époux peut être tenu de verser à l’autre une prestation destinée à compenser, autant qu’il est possible, la disparité que la rupture du mariage crée dans les conditions de vie respectives.” and held that “la différence de situation professionnelle ou de rémunération patrimoniale existant entre les époux antérieurement au mariage ne peut être un critère de refus d’octroi de la prestation compensatoire puisque celle-ci vise à maintenir la parité qu’assurait l’union matrimoniale” — a pre-existing gap from before the wedding cannot by itself justify refusing the payment. For the British spouse who gave up a career in London to raise children in France, that ruling is gold: gather the employment history, the salary curves, the pension statements from both countries and the evidence of childcare choices, because the judge must look at the whole picture and not dismiss the claim on a single criterion. The payment normally takes the form of a capital sum, payable in cash or by transfer of assets, and only exceptionally as rent-like instalments; its tax treatment must be checked with each year’s finance rules before the agreement is signed.
The third pillar is the children: parental authority, residence and money. French law starts from joint parental authority — the autorité parentale, the bundle of rights and duties over the child — which both parents normally keep after divorce, and the fight is usually about where the child lives. Article 373-2-9 of the Civil Code provides that “la résidence de l’enfant peut être fixée en alternance au domicile de chacun des parents ou au domicile de l’un d’eux.” Alternating residence — roughly the English shared-care arrangement — is available even on a provisional basis where parents disagree, but the judge orders it only where the practical conditions genuinely serve the child: geographical closeness of the two homes, school stability, each parent’s availability and the absence of serious conflict. Where one parent plans to return to the United Kingdom with the children, the file becomes an international relocation case: the judge weighs the child’s habitual life in France, schooling, language, siblings and friendships against the relocating parent’s project, housing, work and proposed contact schedule for the other parent. Removing children to England without the other parent’s consent or a court order exposes the mover to proceedings for child abduction under the Hague Convention of 1980, which operates between France and the United Kingdom regardless of Brexit, and to criminal liability under French law — never move first and argue later. Financially, each parent contributes to the children’s maintenance and education in proportion to resources, respective incomes and the residence pattern; the contribution is indexed, revisable when circumstances change, and enforceable through direct payment mechanisms against wages or bank accounts. If your former spouse stops paying, the Agence de recouvrement et d’intermédiation des pensions alimentaires — the public maintenance recovery agency — and the family judge offer collection routes before any cross-border enforcement is needed.
B. Already divorced in England or Wales: how to get your UK decree recognised in France and challenge a refusal
Many British clients arrive with the mirror-image problem: the divorce has already been pronounced in England and Wales, and they need it to count in France — to remarry, to sell or divide the French house, to regularise the land register, or to stop a second divorce case filed by the other spouse in France. Before Brexit, a decree from an English court circulated in France under the Brussels II bis recognition regime with minimal friction. That era is over. There is no bilateral Franco-British convention on recognition of divorces comparable to the ones France maintains with some other states, so a UK decree is treated as a judgment of a third state. Its effects on civil status — the fact of being divorced — are generally accepted in France once the decree satisfies the French test of international regularity, but anything requiring enforcement against assets or persons in France, from a costs order to a property transfer or a pension sharing order touching French assets, needs the exequatur — the court order that declares a foreign judgment enforceable on French territory. The starting point is Article 509 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which provides that “Les jugements rendus par les tribunaux étrangers et les actes reçus par les officiers étrangers sont exécutoires sur le territoire de la République de la manière et dans les cas prévus par la loi.” In plain terms, the foreign judgment does not enforce itself; it becomes enforceable the way and in the cases the law provides, and the route runs through the tribunal judiciaire.
How French courts examine a foreign divorce is best shown by a recent illustration from the Cour de cassation. On 25 March 2026, in case number 24-13.011, the First Civil Chamber ruled on the recognition of a Moroccan divorce where the wife had first petitioned in France and the husband then obtained a Moroccan decree. The Court quashed the Paris court’s refusal of enforcement, holding that a court first seised in France does not by itself defeat the foreign decree. The ruling states that “une juridiction française fût-elle première saisie, l’autorité de la chose jugée de la décision de divorce prononcée par un juge marocain doit être reconnue en France dès lors que cette décision remplit les conditions de régularité internationale prévues à l’article 16 de la Convention du 5 octobre 1957, incluant le respect des critères de compétence indirecte fixés à l’article 11, alinéas 1 et 2, de la Convention du 10 août 1981.” The decision then quotes the governing text in full: “En matière civile et commerciale, les décisions contentieuses rendues par les juridictions siégeant en France ou au Maroc ont de plein droit l’autorité de la chose jugée sur le territoire de l’autre pays si elles réunissent les conditions suivantes : a) La décision émane d’une juridiction compétente selon les règles de droit international privé admises dans le pays où la décision est exécutée, sauf renonciation certaine de l’intéressé ; b) Les parties ont été légalement citées, représentées ou déclarées défaillantes ; c) La décision est, d’après la loi du pays où elle a été rendue, passée en force de chose jugée et susceptible d’exécution ; d) La décision ne contient rien de contraire à l’ordre public du pays où elle est invoquée ou aux principes de droit public applicables dans ce pays.” and adds the jurisdictional counterpart, “Au sens de l’alinéa a) de l’article 16 de la Convention d’aide mutuelle judiciaire et d’exequatur des jugements du 5 octobre 1957, la dissolution du mariage peut être prononcée par les juridictions de celui des deux États sur le territoire duquel les époux ont leur domicile commun ou avaient leur dernier domicile commun.” This case concerned the Franco-Moroccan conventions, which do not apply to a British decree, and it must not be read as a UK precedent. Its value is methodological: it shows the French checklist in action — competent foreign court, fair summons, final judgment, no clash with French public policy or with an existing French judgment — and the same style of checklist, under ordinary law rather than a convention, is what a UK decree faces. Concretely, to get your English decree recognised you will file a petition for exequatur before the tribunal judiciaire with the sealed decree, a sworn French translation, proof that the English proceedings were properly served, and evidence the decree is final — the English decree absolute or final order — plus the certificate of the English court where available. If the French administration refuses to transcribe the divorce onto the French marriage record, or a French court declares the UK decree ineffective while a competing French case runs, that refusal can be challenged: transcription refusals go before the courts with the procureur — the public prosecutor who oversees civil status — as party, and a judgment refusing exequatur can be appealed. The mirror risk also exists: if your spouse files in France after you filed in London, the French judge seized second may stay — surseoir à statuer, pause the case — or press on, depending on the lis pendens analysis, so speed and proof of first seisin matter enormously. Keep every stamped petition, every acknowledgment of service and every sealed order, because parallel cases are decided on paper dates, not on oral assurances.
Conclusion
Divorcing in France as a British spouse after Brexit is entirely possible, but it runs on French tracks with French signals. File before the right juge aux affaires familiales while residence evidence is fresh, identify early whether French or English law governs each layer of the file — the divorce, the property, the maintenance — and build the financial case the way the French judge expects: valuations for the house, career and pension evidence for the prestation compensatoire, and a child-focused residence plan rather than bargaining chips. If the divorce already happened in England or Wales, do not assume the French administration will simply accept it: assemble the sealed decree, the translations and the proof of service, seek exequatur where enforcement is needed, and challenge transcription refusals instead of accepting them. The two traps to avoid are delay — residence moves, parallel petitions and appeal deadlines all punish the slow — and paperwork drift, because untranslated or unauthenticated documents stall cases for months. Handled methodically, with each refusal met by its proper appeal, a cross-Channel divorce ends where it should: with a decree that counts in both countries, a house divided or sold at a fair price, a lump sum that reflects the life built together, and children whose home, school and contact schedule survive the separation intact.
Need a quick opinion on your case
A telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm helps you check which French court can hear your divorce, which law applies to your marriage, or how to get your UK decree recognised before the deadline expires. Call Maître Reda Kohen on +33 6 46 60 58 22, or use the contact page.