You are punched in a bar queue in Bordeaux, mugged for your watch outside the Gare du Nord, or shoved and kicked by a neighbour in your Dordogne village. You are British, you may have lived in France for years or arrived last week, and within minutes the same questions hit every victim: do I call the police or go to hospital first, will anyone take me seriously if my French is shaky, and who pays for the broken tooth, the torn jacket and the nights you cannot sleep? This guide answers those questions in the order you will actually face them. It explains the French criminal complaint, known as the plainte, the medical certificate that decides how seriously your case is treated, what the public prosecutor does with your file, how you claim damages beside the prosecutor as partie civile, and how you are still compensated when the attacker cannot pay or is never caught. Brexit changed nothing about these rights: a British victim has exactly the same standing before the French criminal courts as a French one. Read this once, act fast, and keep every paper, because in France the victim who documents early is the victim who gets paid.

I. Assaulted in France as a British Visitor or Resident: How to File the Police Complaint That Protects You

A. Where and How to File Your Plainte, and the Medical Certificate That Decides Everything

Start with the distinction that confuses almost every British victim. In France you can walk into any commissariat de police or gendarmerie and do one of two things: lodge a main courante, which is simply a written record of what happened, or file a plainte, which is a formal criminal complaint that asks for the offender to be prosecuted. Only the plainte can lead to a trial and to court-ordered damages. A main courante leaves a trace, which is better than nothing if you are unsure, but it does not trigger a prosecution. If you were hit, threatened, robbed with violence or sexually assaulted, file a plainte. You can convert an initial main courante into a plainte later, but every week lost weakens the evidence, so treat the plainte as the default.

No officer is allowed to turn you away. Article 15-3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides: “Les officiers et agents de police judiciaire sont tenus de recevoir les plaintes déposées par les victimes d’infractions à la loi pénale, y compris lorsque ces plaintes sont déposées dans un service ou une unité de police judiciaire territorialement incompétents.” In plain English, the police must take your complaint even if you report it in the wrong town. If the assault happened in Marseille and you report it in Paris because you fled home, the Paris officers must record it and forward it. If an officer tries to send you away, suggests a main courante would be simpler, or claims your French is too poor, insist politely on a plainte and ask for the officer’s name and the record number. You can also start the process online through the official pré-plainte en ligne system and then attend the appointment to sign, or write directly to the procureur de la République, the public prosecutor, at the tribunal judiciaire of the place where the assault happened. The letter route is useful if you have already left France: send it by recorded delivery, describe the facts date by date, list your injuries and losses, enclose copies of your medical certificates and photos, and keep the proof of posting. At the end of any filing, you must receive a récépissé, a receipt proving you complained. Without that receipt you cannot prove the date of your complaint later, and dates matter, as we shall see.

Your French does not need to be good. Ask for an interpreter or bring a French-speaking friend, and give your statement in English if that is the only way to be precise. A confused statement taken in broken French helps nobody, while a precise statement in English, translated and signed, protects you. Bring your passport, your address in France or your hotel details, the contact of your travel insurer, and everything that proves what happened: photos of injuries and the scene, torn clothing kept unwashed in a bag, CCTV positions you noticed, names of witnesses, the registration of a car, screenshots of threats. If the assault happened at work, in a bar with cameras, or on public transport, say so immediately so the footage can be seized before it is erased. If your phone was stolen during the attack, give its IMEI number and file the theft within the same complaint, because the property loss will matter for compensation later.

Then see a doctor the same day, even if you feel fine. This is the single most important practical advice in this guide. French criminal law classifies punches, kicks and blows, known as violences, largely according to the medical consequences measured in days of incapacité totale de travail, usually shortened to ITT. Despite the name, which dates from another era, ITT does not mean time off work in the British sense. It is the number of days, set by the examining doctor, during which the victim cannot perform the ordinary acts of daily life. The doctor’s certificat médical initial therefore shapes the whole case. Go to the emergency department, your GP, or a médecin légiste in a medico-legal unit, describe every symptom including shock, anxiety and sleeplessness, and make sure the certificate records each injury, the psychological state, and the ITT figure. Ask for a follow-up certificate if symptoms evolve, and keep every prescription, scan and sick note. An assault with no certificate is an assault the court struggles to measure, while an assault with a careful certificate is an assault the court can price.

The thresholds are written into the Code pénal, the criminal code. Article 222-11 of the Code pénal states: “Les violences ayant entraîné une incapacité totale de travail pendant plus de huit jours sont punies de trois ans d’emprisonnement et de 45 000 euros d’amende.” Cross the eight-day line and the case is automatically a délit, a mid-level criminal offence tried before the tribunal correctionnel. Below that line, article 222-13 of the Code pénal provides: “Les violences ayant entraîné une incapacité de travail inférieure ou égale à huit jours ou n’ayant entraîné aucune incapacité de travail sont punies de trois ans d’emprisonnement et de 45 000 euros d’amende lorsqu’elles sont commises :” followed by a list of aggravating circumstances. In other words, lighter injuries are still a délit carrying three years’ imprisonment when an aggravating factor is present, such as an attack on a minor, on a visibly vulnerable person, on a spouse or partner, with a weapon, in a group, while drunk or on drugs, or with a racist, sexist or homophobic motive. Without any aggravating factor, minor blows are a contravention, a low-level offence, which still allows damages but before a different court. And when the basic offence of article 222-11 is committed with one of those aggravating factors, article 222-12 of the Code pénal raises the penalty: “L’infraction définie à l’article 222-11 est punie de cinq ans d’emprisonnement et de 75 000 euros d’amende lorsqu’elle est commise :” followed by the same catalogue of aggravation. Tell the police and the doctor every fact that could amount to aggravation: the knife you saw, the two friends holding you down, the slurs shouted about your accent, the fact the attacker knew you live alone. Victims routinely forget these details and lose a higher classification they deserved.

One deadline governs everything, and it is generous but absolute. Article 8 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides: “L’action publique des délits se prescrit par six années révolues à compter du jour où l’infraction a été commise.” For most assaults, which are délits, you have six full years from the day of the attack to set the public prosecution in motion. Do not read that generosity as an invitation to wait. Memories fade, witnesses move, CCTV is wiped within days, and bruises heal. The six-year rule matters mainly for victims who were too shocked, too young, or too far from France to complain at once: their case is not dead. But the victim who complains within days, with a same-day medical certificate, is in a different league from the victim who returns two years later with nothing but a story.

B. What the Prosecutor Does With Your Complaint, and How to Challenge a Classement Sans Suite

Once your plainte is recorded, the file goes to the procureur de la République, who directs the criminal response. The prosecutor can order a police investigation, send the case straight to trial, propose a simplified procedure if the attacker admits the facts, or close the file with a classement sans suite, a decision to take no further action. Many British victims experience that closure as a second assault: months of silence, then a short letter saying the case is dropped for lack of evidence, an unknown offender, or minor harm. A classement sans suite is not a judgment. It does not say you lied, it does not say the attacker is innocent, and above all it does not end your rights. It is an administrative decision of opportunity, and French law gives you two precise weapons against it.

The first weapon is fast, free and often underused: the appeal to the senior prosecutor. Article 40-3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure states: “Toute personne ayant dénoncé des faits au procureur de la République peut former un recours auprès du procureur général contre la décision de classement sans suite prise à la suite de cette dénonciation.” The procureur général sits at the cour d’appel above the local prosecutor and can order the prosecution to be started. Write to that office as soon as you receive the closure notice, enclosing the notice itself, your original complaint and receipt, any new evidence such as a consolidated medical certificate or a witness who has come forward, and a short letter explaining why the closure is wrong. There is no court fee and no lawyer is required, though a lawyer’s letter carries obvious weight. Ask explicitly for the file to be reopened and for further investigation, such as hearing a named witness or seizing footage you have located. Even when the senior prosecutor sides with the closure, the reasoned answer tells you exactly what is missing, which prepares the second weapon.

The second weapon is heavier and usually decisive: the complaint with civil-party petition, the plainte avec constitution de partie civile before the investigating judge, the juge d’instruction. Article 85 of the Code of Criminal Procedure opens this route in broad terms: “Toute personne qui se prétend lésée par un crime ou un délit peut en portant plainte se constituer partie civile devant le juge d’instruction compétent” Any person who claims to have been harmed by a crime or a délit can therefore force the opening of a judicial investigation by complaining directly to the investigating judge. One admissibility condition applies where the prosecutor has already been seized: the petition is admissible only if the victim shows either that the prosecutor told them no prosecution would follow, or “soit qu’un délai de trois mois s’est écoulé depuis qu’elle a déposé plainte devant ce magistrat, contre récépissé ou par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception, ou depuis qu’elle a adressé, selon les mêmes modalités, copie à ce magistrat de sa plainte déposée devant un service de police judiciaire.” In practice that means three months after your complaint to the prosecutor, proved by a receipt or recorded delivery, you can go over the prosecutor’s head. This is why the récépissé from your first complaint matters so much: without proof of its date, you cannot prove the three months have run. Send the petition to the investigating judge by recorded delivery, set out the facts, the legal classification you assert, the evidence and the damages you claim, and expect the judge to fix a consignation, a deposit against potential costs, which the court returns to you if the case proceeds. Victims with modest means can ask for the deposit to be reduced and can apply for legal aid, the aide juridictionnelle, so do not let the word deposit frighten you away from a right that exists precisely for cases the prosecutor preferred to shelve.

Follow your file actively whatever route it takes. Ask the police station for the case number, the numéro de procès-verbal, and the prosecutor’s reference. If you move back to Britain, give the prosecutor and your lawyer an address for service and an email that you actually read, because summonses and closure notices are sent by post and short response periods run from notification. If you are called to an audience, a hearing, attend or be represented: victims who disappear get forgotten, while victims who appear, with certificates, photos and receipts in order, shape the court’s view of the case. Keep a single folder, physical or digital, with the complaint, the receipt, every medical certificate, every bill, every payslip showing lost days, and every letter from the prosecutor. That folder is the raw material of your compensation, and the next part explains how it is converted into money.

II. Compensation for a British Victim of Assault in France: Partie Civile, the Guarantee Fund and How to Challenge a Refusal

A. Becoming Partie Civile: Claiming Damages Beside the Prosecutor at the Criminal Trial

The most efficient way to be compensated is to stand inside the criminal trial itself as partie civile, the civil party. French law joins the criminal and civil consequences of the same blows in one hearing: the court that convicts the attacker also orders the attacker to pay you. The foundation is article 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: “L’action civile en réparation du dommage causé par un crime, un délit ou une contravention appartient à tous ceux qui ont personnellement souffert du dommage directement causé par l’infraction.” Anyone who personally suffered damage directly caused by the offence owns the civil action for repair. That single sentence answers the question British families often ask after an attack on a relative: the compensation goes to those directly harmed, and each of them must show a personal, direct loss.

The courts police that directness strictly, and a recent ruling shows how. On 26 March 2025 the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, in appeal no. 24-82.499, quashed the part of a Douai appeal judgment that had accepted the civil-party petition of a professional body and awarded it a symbolic euro plus costs after violence committed against a bailiff. The Court recalled: “Selon ce texte, sauf disposition légale particulière, l’action civile ne peut être exercée, devant la juridiction répressive, que par la personne qui a subi un préjudice résultant directement de l’infraction.” Moral harm suffered by a whole profession through one of its members was not direct enough. For you as the assaulted victim, the lesson is reassuring rather than worrying: your own bodily injury, your own fear, your own lost earnings and your own damaged belongings are the textbook example of direct harm, so your petition is exactly what the procedure is built for. But frame the claim around your personal losses, person by person: your hospital bills, your stopped shifts, your smashed glasses, your partner’s ruined coat that you were wearing. General statements about feeling unsafe in France do not price a claim; itemised personal losses do.

Becoming partie civile is deliberately simple. If the case reaches the tribunal correctionnel, article 418 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides: “Toute personne qui, conformément à l’article 2, prétend avoir été lésée par un délit, peut, si elle ne l’a déjà fait, se constituer partie civile à l’audience même.” You can declare yourself civil party at the hearing itself, even if you never did so during the investigation, and no lawyer is formally required, though in practice a lawyer transforms the outcome. State the amount claimed under each head of loss, hand over the bundle of proofs, and answer the court’s questions about how the assault changed your daily life. The court then rules on the civil interests in the same judgment as the conviction, ordering the defendant to pay damages, and article 475-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure adds: “Le tribunal condamne l’auteur de l’infraction ou la personne condamnée civilement en application de l’article 470-1 à payer à la partie civile la somme qu’il détermine, au titre des frais non payés par l’Etat et exposés par celle-ci.” Your unreimbursed costs, from the interpreter you paid to the train tickets to the hearing, can therefore be charged to the convicted attacker on top of the damages.

Price your claim the way French courts think, head by head. Temporary total incapacity and its personal form, the days you could not live normally; suffering endured, the pretium doloris graded on a scale the medical expert applies; temporary and then permanent functional deficit if movement, sight, hearing or balance is lastingly reduced; professional losses, meaning wages lost and shifts cancelled, proved by employer letters and payslips; housework and childcare you had to pay others to do; medical expenses left on you after the French health system and your travel insurer paid their share; damaged clothing, glasses, phone and watch; and the psychological aftermath documented by your GP or a psychiatrist, from anxiety to post-traumatic stress. British victims should keep sterling proofs too: the cancelled return flight, the extra hotel nights, the employer’s letter from Leeds or London converting lost days into pounds, because the French court converts and compensates real loss wherever the paperwork proves it. Ask the court for an expert medical assessment, the expertise médicale, whenever injuries are disputed or evolving: a court-appointed doctor examines you, both sides comment, and the report becomes the backbone of the award. Never accept the first offer from the attacker’s insurer without advice, never sign a receipt presented as a mere formality at the police station, and never throw away a bill because it seems small. Small bills add up, and French courts compensate proved loss, not dramatic loss.

B. When the Attacker Cannot Pay or Is Never Found: the CIVI, the FGTI and the SARVI

A conviction with damages is worthless if the attacker is insolvent, has fled, or was never identified. French law built a second floor of compensation precisely for that situation, and British victims use it constantly. The gateway is the Commission d’indemnisation des victimes d’infractions, the CIVI, a specialised bench sitting at each tribunal judiciaire that orders compensation from the national guarantee fund even when no offender can pay. Article 706-3 of the Code of Criminal Procedure states the principle: “Toute personne, y compris tout agent public ou tout militaire, ayant subi un préjudice résultant de faits volontaires ou non qui présentent le caractère matériel d’une infraction peut obtenir la réparation intégrale des dommages qui résultent des atteintes à la personne, lorsque sont réunies les conditions suivantes :” The conditions that follow set the well-known thresholds: full repair for the most serious bodily harm, and, for lighter bodily harm, a personal total incapacity of at least one month, or more precisely, in the words the courts repeat. For lighter bodily harm the fund route requires a personal total incapacity of at least one month. Note the word personal: this is your own incapacity as a human being, not your employer’s sick-leave count, and the CIVI assesses it on medical evidence, not on the label the criminal court gave the same facts.

That last point was settled in your favour by the Court of Cassation. On 5 March 2020 the Second Civil Chamber, in appeal no. 19-12.720, quashed a Nancy appeal judgment that had thrown out a victim’s fund claim by hiding behind the criminal court’s findings. The Court recalled that “l’autorité de la chose jugée au pénal sur le civil ne s’étend qu’à ce qui a été nécessairement décidé par le juge répressif quant à l’existence du fait qui forme la base commune de l’action civile et de l’action pénale, à sa qualification et à l’innocence ou la culpabilité de celui à qui le fait est imputé.” The authority of the criminal judgment over the civil claim covers only what the criminal judge necessarily decided. The criminal court had convicted for armed violence with an ITT below the fund’s threshold, but that measurement, taken for sentencing the offender, did not stop the CIVI from judging for itself whether the victim’s personal incapacity reached a month. The court of appeal should therefore have investigated the real personal incapacity instead of closing the door. For a British victim this is gold: even if the criminal case recorded a modest ITT, or even if the criminal case collapsed entirely, the CIVI looks at your body and your life with fresh eyes, provided your medical file proves the lasting impact.

The money itself comes from the Fonds de garantie des victimes des actes de terrorisme et d’autres infractions, the FGTI. Article L. 422-1 of the Insurance Code explains: “la réparation intégrale des dommages résultant d’une atteinte à la personne est assurée par l’intermédiaire du fonds de garantie des victimes des actes de terrorisme et d’autres infractions.” Full repair of personal injury is channelled through this fund, financed by a levy on property insurance policies. In practice you apply to the CIVI with the complaint, the medical certificates, the bills and the proof that the offender cannot pay, the fund investigates and usually makes an offer, and the CIVI awards the balance after an expert assessment if you disagree. Act within the strict time limits, which run in months rather than years from the offence or from the last criminal decision, so file the CIVI application in parallel with the criminal track instead of waiting for it to end. And claim every head of loss at once, because the governing idea, restated by the Court of Cassation on 2 April 2026 in appeal no. 24-18.909, is “le principe de la réparation intégrale sans perte ni profit pour la victime”, full repair with neither loss nor profit for the victim. In that ruling the Court cut down an award of expert-assistant fees, holding that the lower court had relied “par des motifs insuffisants à établir que ces frais étaient nécessaires à l’évaluation des préjudices de la victime et étaient, partant, la conséquence du fait dommageable”. Costs are recoverable when they are shown to be necessary consequences of the harmful event, so attach the invoice, explain why each expense was needed, and link it to the assault date by date.

Two complements complete the picture. If the attack also cost you property, a stolen phone, a smashed camera, a car keyed by the same gang, article 706-14 of the Code of Criminal Procedure opens the SARVI route, the victim-recovery service: “Toute personne qui, victime d’un vol, d’une escroquerie, d’un abus de confiance, d’une extorsion de fonds ou d’une destruction, d’une dégradation ou d’une détérioration d’un bien lui appartenant, d’un chantage, d’un abus de faiblesse ou d’une atteinte aux systèmes de traitement automatisé de données, ne peut obtenir à un titre quelconque une réparation ou une indemnisation effective et suffisante de son préjudice, et se trouve de ce fait dans une situation matérielle ou psychologique grave, peut obtenir une indemnité dans les conditions prévues par les articles 706-3 (3° et dernier alinéa) à 706-12”. List the stolen and broken items inside the same complaint from day one, keep purchase invoices and repair quotes, and claim them through this channel when the offender cannot pay. And if the offender was ordered to pay but does not, the SARVI, the Service d’aide au recouvrement des victimes d’infractions, enforces the criminal court’s award for you and advances the money, which matters enormously when the attacker is a young offender with nothing to seize. Between the partie civile award, the CIVI and the SARVI, a British victim who documents everything is very rarely left with nothing.

Practical points specific to Britons close the loop. If you needed hospital care, the emergency department treats first and bills later; your GHIC or travel insurance covers the medical side while this guide’s procedures cover the legal side, and our companion pieces explain how to challenge a French hospital bill or a healthcare refusal and how to complain and claim after a burglary in your French second home. If the assault followed a road incident, read our guide to Badinter compensation after a car accident in France, where a different no-fault regime applies. The British consulate cannot investigate or pay compensation, but its guidance for victims of crime abroad explains the consular help available, and the French official portal explains how to file a complaint in France. Keep copies of everything in English and French, tell every authority your British address for service if you go home, and never assume that leaving France ends the case: the CIVI and the criminal court can compensate and convict in your absence if your file speaks for you.

Conclusion

An assault in France sets three clocks running at once: the medical clock, where a same-day certificate fixes the seriousness of your case; the criminal clock, where a prompt plainte with its receipt opens the road to trial and to the two challenges against a dropped case; and the compensation clock, where the partie civile claim, the CIVI application and the SARVI recovery turn injuries and bills into money even when the attacker is broke or unknown. Miss the first hours and every clock runs against you; use them well and French law is strikingly generous to victims, British or French alike. File the complaint, see the doctor, keep the folder, challenge every refusal in writing, and take advice before any deadline passes. Your accent changes nothing about your rights, but your speed changes everything about your result.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Our office offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm for British victims of assault in France. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page. We assist clients across Paris and Île-de-France with police complaints, partie civile claims, CIVI applications and challenges against dropped cases.