Your children live in France with you, the English court order says your former partner must pay monthly maintenance, and the money has stopped arriving from across the Channel. Or the mirror image: you are the British parent settled in France, the other parent stayed in England, and a French claim for back payments has just landed on your doormat. Since Brexit, neither side can rely on the old European shortcut that once made an English maintenance decision enforceable in France almost automatically. The good news is that a complete machinery still exists: the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention, to which both the United Kingdom and France are parties, the French Central Authority route for cross-border recovery, and the French courts, which can recognise an English decision, fix a French amount, or authorise a bailiff to seize earnings. This guide explains, for British readers, every French term at first use, how to get an English child maintenance order enforced in France after Brexit, how arrears are actually recovered euro by euro, how the French family judge calculates the monthly figure, and how either parent challenges a decision that looks wrong. It is written for action: which office to write to, which documents to attach, which judge to seize, and which defences genuinely work.
I. My Ex Has Stopped Paying From Across the Channel: How Do I Get an English Maintenance Order Enforced in France?
A. The Hague 2007 Route or the French Exequatur: Which Door Do I Knock On First?
Before Brexit, a maintenance decision made in England circulated inside the European Union under Regulation 4/2009, with streamlined recognition and enforcement. That European regulation no longer carries decisions between the United Kingdom and France. What carries them now is the Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance, known as the Hague 2007 Child Support Convention. Both states are bound by it: the status table of the Hague Conference on Private International Law records the ratification by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on 28 September 2020 and the application to France, through the European Union, since 1 August 2014 (HCCH status table of the 2007 Child Support Convention). In practice this gives you two complementary doors, and choosing the right one first saves months.
The first door is administrative cooperation between Central Authorities, the designated national offices that transmit and support cross-border maintenance claims. On the French side, the office that handles these files is the Bureau du recouvrement des créances alimentaires à l’étranger, the RCA unit, the French recovery office for maintenance claims abroad, attached to the ministry for Europe and foreign affairs. The official service-public.fr guidance states the principle plainly: a maintenance creditor whose debtor lives abroad and does not pay may open a cross-border maintenance recovery procedure, supported by the RCA unit of the ministry for Europe and foreign affairs (service-public.fr, unpaid maintenance when the debtor lives abroad). You send that office a complete file by post or email, and it can help you assemble the file if pieces are missing. The mirror exists on the British side: the route for getting a maintenance decision depends on whether the other parent lives in a Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders (REMO) country, and where that is the case the claimant contacts the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre (MEBC) by email or post (GOV.UK, if the other parent lives abroad). Note one British limit before you start: where the child and the parent providing main day-to-day care both live abroad, no fresh application to the Child Maintenance Service is available (GOV.UK, child maintenance if a parent lives abroad, overview). A fresh Child Maintenance Service assessment is therefore not the answer when the children and their carer are in France; recognition or a French decision is.
The second door is direct enforcement of the English decision before the French courts. French law states the entry rule in the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures: “Seuls constituent des titres exécutoires : 1° Les décisions des juridictions de l’ordre judiciaire ou de l’ordre administratif lorsqu’elles ont force exécutoire, ainsi que les accords auxquels ces juridictions ont conféré force exécutoire ; 2° Les actes et les jugements étrangers ainsi que les sentences arbitrales déclarés exécutoires par une décision non susceptible d’un recours suspensif d’exécution, sans préjudice des dispositions du droit de l’Union européenne applicables ;” (Article L. 111-3 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures on Légifrance). In plain terms, an English judgment becomes an enforceable title in France once a French decision declares it enforceable, unless a directly applicable instrument already gives it that force. Which French judge does that work? The Code of Civil Procedure designates the tribunal judiciaire, the ordinary civil court, for applications for exequatur, the French declaration of enforceability of a foreign judgment, and expressly covers applications for the certificate extract of a decision under Article 20(1) of Regulation 4/2009 (Article 509-1 of the Code of Civil Procedure on Légifrance). A powerful precedent shows how far this goes: in a case about American decisions, the First Civil Chamber of the Cour de cassation, the French supreme court for civil matters, reviewed an exequatur granted in France limited to the maintenance provisions alone of New York divorce decisions, the child contribution and the seven-year spousal maintenance, while the property consequences stayed out of the French enforcement (Cass. Civ. 1st, 2 December 2020, No. 18-20.691). The method the Court recalled is the canonical three-part test, worth quoting because your opponent’s lawyer will cite it too: “En application de l’article 509 du code de procédure civile, pour accorder l’exequatur, hors toute convention internationale, le juge français doit vérifier la régularité internationale de la décision étrangère en s’assurant que celle-ci remplit les conditions de compétence indirecte du juge étranger fondée sur le rattachement du litige au for saisi, de conformité à l’ordre public international de fond et de procédure et d’absence de fraude.” So the French judge checks the indirect jurisdiction of the English court through the link between the dispute and England, compatibility with French international public policy on substance and procedure, and the absence of fraud. An English child arrangement or financial remedy order made after genuine adversarial proceedings in the family’s English forum passes that test in the ordinary run of cases; the reported challenge based on alleged judicial bias failed precisely because the measures rested on objective family criteria, the family lifestyle during the marriage, joint career choices, each spouse’s prospects, the parties’ finances and the children’s needs, and because appeal remedies had been available.
Where do you apply in France when there is not yet any decision, or when you want the French judge to decide the maintenance itself? The Cour de cassation has clarified the jurisdictional logic that still governs the French side. In a 2021 ruling, the Court recited Article 3 of Regulation 4/2009: “Sont compétentes pour statuer en matière d’obligations alimentaires dans les États membres : a) la juridiction du lieu où le défendeur a sa résidence habituelle, ou b) la juridiction du lieu où le créancier a sa résidence habituelle, ou c) la juridiction qui est compétente selon la loi du for pour connaître d’une action relative à l’état des personnes lorsque la demande relative à une obligation alimentaire est accessoire à cette action, sauf si cette compétence est fondée uniquement sur la nationalité d’une des parties, ou d) la juridiction qui est compétente selon la loi du for pour connaître d’une action relative à la responsabilité parentale lorsque la demande relative à une obligation alimentaire est accessoire à cette action, sauf si cette compétence est fondée uniquement sur la nationalité d’une des parties.” It then held: “La compétence internationale en matière de responsabilité parentale dépend d’éléments de fait et de droit distincts de ceux qui commandent la compétence en matière de désunion. Il s’en déduit la compétence à l’égard de la demande d’obligation alimentaire, lorsqu’elle est accessoire à l’action relative à la responsabilité parentale.” (Cass. Civ. 1st, 3 November 2021, No. 20-12.006). Translated into strategy: if your children live habitually in France, the French family judge can hear the maintenance claim attached to parental-responsibility proceedings even when the divorce itself belongs elsewhere, because jurisdiction over the children is assessed on its own facts. For a British mother or father whose children are settled in France, that means the tribunal judiciaire of the children’s French home is normally available, whether you ask it to recognise the English order or to fix a French contribution. Our companion guide on recognition of English divorces explains the parallel divorce-side mechanics of opposability and exequatur (British divorce in France: recognition of the English decree).
B. From Paper to Money: How Are the Arrears Actually Recovered in France?
A recognised decision is only half the battle; the other half is converting months of unpaid maintenance into money on your account. French enforcement runs through the commissaire de justice, the enforcement officer formerly called huissier de justice, and it follows a strict sequence where each missing formality can undo the next step. The Court of Appeal of Rennes gave a textbook illustration in November 2025 in a cross-border file where a German youth-welfare body acted for the child creditor: wage garnishment, the saisie des rémunérations, had been authorised against a debtor in France on the basis of a German judgment, and the whole enforcement collapsed on one defect, the absence of proper service of that judgment on the debtor. The court recalled that enforcement of a decision made in another state follows the law of the enforcement state, then applied the French service rule: “les jugements ne peuvent être exécutés contre ceux auxquels ils sont opposés qu’après leur avoir été notifiés, à moins que l’exécution n’en soit volontaire.” (Article 503 of the Code of Civil Procedure on Légifrance). Because the creditor produced only an acknowledgment-of-receipt form from the European service regulation instead of a genuine act of service by a commissaire de justice, the court confirmed the enforcement judge: “C’est donc à juste titre que le juge de l’exécution a estimé qu’en l’absence de signification du jugement du 17 octobre 2012 du tribunal de Kaufbeuren, cette décision ne pouvait constituer un titre exécutoire, et, par conséquent, débouté M. [L] [V] [U] de sa demande de saisie des rémunérations de Monsieur [K] [V].” (Rennes Court of Appeal, 2nd Chamber, 25 November 2025, RG No. 25/00249). The lesson for a British creditor is direct: before any garnishment, have the English decision, once recognised, formally served on the debtor in France by a commissaire de justice, keep the proof of that signification, and only then instruct enforcement. Partial voluntary payments made after a payment order do not count as voluntary execution of the judgment itself, as the same ruling confirms, so do not assume that a few bank transfers received late cure a missing service.
The documents the officer will demand track the European checklist the Rennes court recited: a copy of the decision establishing its authenticity, the extract issued by the court of origin on the standard form, a statement of the arrears with the calculation date, and where needed a translation into French. Assemble them while the RCA or your lawyer runs the recognition step, because translation alone can take weeks. Then the practical sequence in France is familiar to any enforcement practitioner: formal demand to pay, the commandement de payer, served by the officer; then, if payment does not follow, attachment of bank balances, the saisie-attribution, or garnishment of wages, the saisie des rémunérations, in the hands of the employer, the bank, or even public bodies and associations that owe the debtor money. Where the debtor kept a French foothold, service-public.fr points to the shortcut: a debtor living abroad who kept a bank account, property or income in France can be pursued through forced recovery of the arrears (service-public.fr, what to do if maintenance is not paid). That single sentence covers the classic British configuration: the father or mother lives in London but kept the French euro account, or earns French rental income, or owns a French property that can ultimately answer for the debt. Tell your officer on day one about every French account, income stream and property you know of; enforcement in France attaches to assets located in France, and a debtor who looks insolvent from London often is not from Paris.
Two time rules govern how far back you can go. First, each monthly instalment is a separate claim, and personal and movable actions are time-barred after five years: “Les actions personnelles ou mobilières se prescrivent par cinq ans à compter du jour où le titulaire d’un droit a connu ou aurait dû connaître les faits lui permettant de l’exercer.” (Article 2224 of the Civil Code on Légifrance). In maintenance practice this means you cannot sleep on arrears for a decade and then present the whole pile; sue or enforce inside the five-year window for each block of monthly payments, and interrupt the period with a formal step, a writ, an enforcement measure, or an acknowledgment of the debt. Second, keep a ledger from the first missed month: date due, date paid, amount paid, method, reference. The statement of arrears with its calculation date is one of the enforcement documents the courts expect, and a clean ledger wins cases while a reconstructed memory loses them. If the debtor challenges enforcement before the juge de l’exécution, the enforcement judge, the defences that work are concrete ones: proof of payment, a genuine dispute over the calculation, expiry of the limitation period for the oldest months, or a formal defect in service or in the title. Arguments about fairness of the original English amount belong to a variation application, not to the enforcement judge, and raising them there only burns costs.
II. The French Judge Is Asked to Fix or Change the Amount: How Much Will I Pay or Receive?
A. How the Family Judge Calculates the Contribution: Needs, Resources and the Traps That Inflate or Deflate It
When no usable English decision exists, or when the family now lives its life in France and both parents accept a French figure, the juge aux affaires familiales, the JAF, the specialist family judge of the tribunal judiciaire, fixes the contribution à l’entretien et à l’éducation des enfants, the parental contribution to the children’s maintenance and upbringing, universally shortened in conversation to pension alimentaire. The founding statute fits in one sentence: “Chacun des parents contribue à l’entretien et à l’éducation des enfants à proportion de ses ressources, de celles de l’autre parent, ainsi que des besoins de l’enfant. Cette obligation ne cesse de plein droit ni lorsque l’autorité parentale ou son exercice est retiré, ni lorsque l’enfant est majeur.” (Article 371-2 of the Civil Code on Légifrance). Three consequences matter for British parents. First, proportionality runs both ways: the judge weighs your resources against the other parent’s resources and the child’s needs, so a high-earning City salary relocated to Paris raises the figure, while a genuine drop in income lowers it, provided you prove it with tax notices, payslips and bank statements rather than assertions. Second, the duty survives withdrawal of parental authority and survives the child’s eighteenth birthday: an adult child in higher education or vocational training who cannot support themselves still triggers a contribution, usually paid direct to the young adult. Third, the statute speaks of needs, not of English lifestyles: French judges quantify housing, food, schooling, health, transport and activities at French cost levels, which often moderates figures imported from London expectations in either direction.
The statute then lists the acceptable legal vehicles for the payment: “En cas de séparation entre les parents, ou entre ceux-ci et l’enfant, la contribution à son entretien et à son éducation prend la forme d’une pension alimentaire versée, selon le cas, par l’un des parents à l’autre, ou à la personne à laquelle l’enfant a été confié.” (Article 373-2-2 of the Civil Code on Légifrance). That same article organises the modern collection machinery British parents often discover with surprise: payment through the family-benefits body, with the intermédiation financière, the financial intermediation service run through the Caisse d’allocations familiales, which collects from the debtor and pays the creditor, tracks defaults automatically, and can trigger recovery. Intermediation is now the default for cash pensions fixed by a judgment or an enforceable title, unless both parents refuse it expressly or the judge exempts the case by specially reasoned decision, and either parent can later request it from the benefits body. For a British creditor tired of chasing monthly transfers from a UK account, asking the JAF to order intermediation, or requesting it afterwards, replaces the monthly uncertainty with an institutional collector. For a British debtor paid in sterling, the same machinery means exchange-rate excuses stop working: the sum due is a euro figure on a French timetable, and persistent shortfalls become documented arrears within months.
Two Cour de cassation rulings correct the most expensive mistakes parents make when presenting their figures. The first concerns the spouse who receives a prestation compensatoire, the compensatory payment that offsets the disparity in living standards created by divorce: that sum must not be counted as income when fixing the children’s contribution. The Court states it as a rule: “Attendu que la prestation compensatoire, destinée à compenser la disparité dans les conditions de vie respectives des époux créée par la rupture du mariage, n’a pas à être incluse dans l’appréciation des ressources de l’époux à qui elle est versée pour la fixation de la contribution à l’entretien et à l’éducation des enfants ;” The ruling quashed an appeal decision that had refused a mother any increase by folding her 500 euros monthly compensatory payment into her resources (Cass. Civ. 1st, 19 November 2014, No. 13-23.732). If your English financial remedy included a lump sum or periodical payments labelled as spousal compensation, keep them in a separate column of your budget and say so explicitly; a judge who mixes them into your resources depresses the children’s figure unlawfully. The second ruling polices the debtor’s side of the ledger. The Court recalled the statute, “Aux termes de ce texte, chacun des parents contribue à l’entretien et à l’éducation des enfants à proportion de ses ressources, de celles de l’autre parent, ainsi que des besoins de l’enfant.”, then quashed a decision that had suspended then reduced a father’s contribution after accepting at face value his mortgage instalments, property taxes and extracurricular costs, because the court had failed to check, as requested, whether his everyday spending was in fact borne by his companies or shared with his partner (Cass. Civ. 1st, 14 April 2021, No. 19-24.843). British debtors running a company, a consultancy or a French micro-entreprise alongside employment should therefore expect the JAF to look through the declared salary to dividends, retained profits, housing or car costs routed through the business, and a partner’s contribution to shared household spending. Bring consolidated accounts, not a single payslip.
B. Varying, Indexing and Challenging the Payment: What Can Each Parent Still Ask the Judge?
French maintenance is never frozen. The statute gives the JAF a standing power of revision: “Les dispositions contenues dans la convention homologuée ou dans la convention de divorce par consentement mutuel prenant la forme d’un acte sous signature privée contresigné par avocats déposé au rang des minutes d’un notaire ainsi que les décisions relatives à l’exercice de l’autorité parentale peuvent être modifiées ou complétées à tout moment par le juge, à la demande des ou d’un parent ou du ministère public, qui peut lui-même être saisi par un tiers, parent ou non.” (Article 373-2-13 of the Civil Code on Légifrance). Either parent, and even the public prosecutor seized by a concerned third party, can therefore return to the judge at any moment. In practice the judge varies the figure only on proof of a genuine new element since the last fixing: loss of employment, lasting pay cut, new disability, birth of further children to support, a sharp rise in the child’s documented needs such as private schooling or medical costs, or relocation between France and Britain with its cost-of-living consequences. Prepare the application as a before-and-after file: the budget you declared last time against the budget today, each change evidenced, each figure dated. A bare claim that life in Paris is expensive, or that sterling fell against the euro, moves no judge without documents; a dismissal letter, three months of payslips, the new lease and the revised tax notice do.
Indexation deserves its own paragraph because it prevents half of all variation litigation. French decisions routinely attach the pension to a published index, with annual adjustment on a fixed date, so the amount tracks the cost of living without returning to court. Check whether your judgment or agreement contains an indexation clause, apply it each year on the stated date, and keep the calculation: creditors who never apply the clause silently forfeit the yearly uplift in practice, while debtors who ignore it accumulate arrears measured against the indexed figure. If your English order has no indexation mechanism and the children now live in France, asking the French judge to set a euro figure with a French index is often the single most useful order you can obtain, for both sides: the creditor gets automatic protection, the debtor gets certainty and an end to retrospective disputes about what the sterling sum was worth each month.
Challenging works in both directions, and each direction has its own judge. The debtor who considers the figure excessive or outdated applies to the JAF for reduction or suspension on new elements, as above, and meanwhile must keep paying the current figure: French enforcement does not pause while a variation application is pending, and stopping payment unilaterally manufactures the very arrears the creditor will then seize for. The creditor who considers the figure too low applies for an increase on the same basis, and can combine that application with enforcement of the existing arrears, the two tracks running in parallel before the JAF and the juge de l’exécution respectively. Against enforcement measures themselves, challenges go to the enforcement judge within short deadlines stated in the officer’s documents: defective service, payment already made, wrong calculation, time-barred months, or seizure of protected sums. Raise those points fast and with exhibits; the enforcement judge decides quickly and unsentimentally. One strategic caution for cross-border families: running an English variation application and a French variation application simultaneously over the same children invites conflicting decisions and satellite litigation about which court was seized first. Choose one forum, generally the forum of the children’s habitual residence, pursue it properly, and ask the other side’s court to stay any parallel claim. Courts reward the parent who centralises the dispute; they penalise the parent who multiplies it.
Conclusion
Brexit removed the European fast lane for maintenance between England and France, but it left every working alternative in place. A British creditor in France recovers through the Hague 2007 Convention machinery, the RCA file, recognition of the English decision by the tribunal judiciaire with its three-part exequatur test, and enforcement by a commissaire de justice who serves first and seizes second. A British debtor in France answers through the same courts: a French contribution fixed on proven resources and needs, with the compensatory payment kept out of the calculation and business-routed spending exposed, then varied at any time on genuine new evidence, indexed yearly to avoid repeat litigation, and challenged before the right judge on the right ground. Both sides share one discipline that decides more files than any legal subtlety: serve every document properly, ledger every euro from the first missed month, act inside the five-year window, and never stop paying unilaterally while a variation is pending. Organised that way, a cross-Channel maintenance file is slow but certain; improvised, it is slow and expensive. Open the file this week: write to the RCA or instruct your officer, assemble the recognition documents with their translation, and put the next application before the children’s judge with a documented before-and-after budget.