Your husband has just filed for divorce in London. You live in Lyon with the children, the French house is in both names, and his pension is still in the United Kingdom. Your first question is simple: which court actually decides your divorce, and your second is just as urgent: will the decision count on the other side of the Channel? Since Brexit, the answer is no longer automatic on either point, and filing in the wrong place can cost you the house, the pension top-up, or custody of the children.

Before 1 January 2021, European rules coordinated divorces between France and England: the court first seised generally kept the case, and a divorce granted in one country was recognised in the other without any special procedure. That machinery has gone. England is now a third State for European family-law instruments, which means a French court and an English court can both be seised of the same divorce at the same time, and a decree made in London needs a French court order before it can be enforced in France, and vice versa.

This guide explains, for a British reader living in France, which court can hear your divorce after Brexit, which law that court will apply to the divorce itself, the children and the money, how to get an English decree recognised, registered and enforced in France, how to get a French judgment recognised in England, and how to challenge a decision that goes against you. Every French legal term is explained at first use. The focus is practical throughout: where to file, what to ask for, what to register, and which deadlines not to miss.

I. Which court can divorce you and which law it will use when one spouse lives in France

A. My spouse filed in London and I live in France: which court is competent, and why filing first no longer blocks the other case

Start with the French side. In France, divorce cases belong to the juge aux affaires familiales, the family-affairs judge sitting in the tribunal judiciaire (the ordinary civil court). Within France, Article 1070 of the Code of Civil Procedure allocates the case between courts: broadly, the court of the family’s residence, or, where the parents live apart, the court of the place where the minor children habitually live when parental authority is exercised jointly. The official text states: « Le juge aux affaires familiales territorialement compétent est : – le juge du lieu où se trouve la résidence de la famille ». If you live in France with the children, a French court will normally accept the case.

International competence is governed by Council Regulation (EU) 2019/1111, known as Brussels II ter, which replaced Brussels II bis for proceedings started on or after 1 August 2022: Regulation (EU) 2019/1111. The mechanism is a list of alternative connecting factors centred on habitual residence and nationality: it is enough that one of the listed criteria sits in France for the French court to be competent. The Court of Cassation, France’s supreme civil court, stated the logic under the predecessor regulation in terms that still describe the system: « une juridiction d’un Etat membre est compétente pour connaître d’une demande en divorce, dès lors que l’un des critères alternatifs de compétence qu’il énonce est localisé sur le territoire de cet Etat, peu important que les époux soient ressortissants d’Etats tiers ou que l’époux défendeur soit domicilié dans un Etat tiers. Cette règle de compétence est exclusive de toute règle de compétence de droit international privé commun. » In plain English: if you or your spouse is habitually resident in France, or if you are both British but live in France, the French family court can hear the divorce even though the other spouse lives in England. That decision, First Civil Chamber, 24 June 2020, appeal No 19-11.714, quashed a ruling that had wrongly declined French jurisdiction, and its reasoning applies directly to British spouses today.

The Brexit rupture concerns what happens when both courts are seised. Under Brussels II ter, between two Member States, the court second seised must stay its proceedings in favour of the court first seised: the famous litispendance (lis pendens) rule. That rule no longer binds an English court, because the United Kingdom is not a party to Brussels II ter, and it no longer protects a London filing against a Lyon filing. Each court now examines its own competence under its own rules. The practical result is a race: two parallel divorces can run at the same time, one in England and one in France, each capable of producing orders on the children, the house and the money. Parallel orders then collide at the recognition stage, where the court asked to enforce the foreign decision may refuse it because its own proceedings were already pending or already decided.

What should you do if papers arrive from London? First, check what has actually been issued: an English divorce petition starts the English case, but it does not stop you filing in France the same week. Second, file promptly before the French family court if France is your home and your children’s home, asking for provisional measures (mesures provisoires): exclusive use of the French home, interim maintenance (pension alimentaire), and interim residence of the children. Third, take English advice immediately on the London petition, because ignoring it can produce a undefended English decree that you will later have to fight at the enforcement stage. Fourth, if the French court declares itself incompetent, that decision can be appealed; the 24 June 2020 ruling above shows that appeal courts sometimes wrongly require both spouses to be European nationals, which is an error of law worth challenging.

One warning about the French consensual route. Since 2017, spouses who agree on everything can divorce by private deed countersigned by lawyers and filed with a notary (notaire), without going to court: Article 229 of the Civil Code provides that « Les époux peuvent consentir mutuellement à leur divorce par acte sous signature privée contresigné par avocats, déposé au rang des minutes d’un notaire ». But Article 229-2 shuts that door where a minor child asks to be heard by a judge, and in any cross-Channel case the notarial deed travels badly: it is not a judgment, so it cannot use the judgment-recognition routes described below. Where England is involved and children, property or pensions are at stake, the judicial divorce before the family-affairs judge is normally the safer vehicle. The government’s English-language pages describe the divorce routes here: service-public.fr, divorce by mutual consent.

B. Will the judge apply French law or English law to our divorce, the children and the money?

Jurisdiction decides who judges; conflict-of-law rules decide which substantive law the judge applies, and the answer can differ for the divorce itself, the children and the finances. In France, the starting point for the divorce is Article 309 of the Civil Code, which French law governs in three cases: « Le divorce et la séparation de corps sont régis par la loi française : – lorsque l’un et l’autre époux sont de nationalité française ; – lorsque les époux ont, l’un et l’autre, leur domicile sur le territoire français ; – lorsque aucune loi étrangère ne se reconnaît compétence, alors que les tribunaux français sont compétents pour connaître du divorce ou de la séparation de corps. » For most British couples settled in France, the second branch decides the point: both spouses domiciled in France means French divorce law applies. France also applies Regulation (EU) No 1259/2010, known as Rome III, on the law applicable to divorce where the spouses have chosen different nationalities or residences allow a choice: Regulation (EU) No 1259/2010. If your case stays in France, expect French divorce law; if it stays in England, the English court decides under the law of England and Wales, which knows neither the French closed list of divorce grounds nor the French prestation compensatoire (compensatory payment). That asymmetry is precisely why the choice of forum matters so much.

French divorce law offers four routes under Articles 229 and following: consent by private deed, acceptance of the principle of the breakdown, definitive alteration of the marriage bond, and fault. Two deserve attention from British readers. Acceptance of the principle (acceptation du principe de la rupture du mariage) lets both spouses agree that the marriage is over without stating why: Article 233 of the Civil Code, in its current wording, frames this no-fault route where the spouses accept the breakdown without regard to its causes: Article 233 du code civil. Definitive alteration (altération définitive du lien conjugal) allows divorce after one year of separated living: « 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 ». Fault (faute) still exists but is rarely the sensible choice where parallel English proceedings are running, because English no-fault divorce will not wait for French fault-finding.

For the children, separation changes nothing in principle: Article 373-2 of the Civil Code states that « La séparation des parents est sans incidence sur les règles de dévolution de l’exercice de l’autorité parentale », meaning both parents keep joint parental authority (autorité parentale) and must preserve the child’s relationship with the other parent. The French judge fixes the child’s habitual residence, visiting and overnight rights (droit de visite et d’hébergement), and each parent’s maintenance contribution. Where the children live in France and one parent threatens to take them to England, act within days: the 1980 Hague Convention on child abduction and the 1996 Hague Convention on parental responsibility both bind France and the United Kingdom, and the French prosecutor and the English courts have emergency procedures. Do not attempt self-help by moving the children yourself; a unilateral move is exactly what abduction law punishes.

For the money, the flagship French remedy is the prestation compensatoire, a lump sum or, exceptionally, periodic payment designed to offset the disparity in living standards that the breakup creates. Article 270 sets its purpose: « Le divorce met fin au devoir de secours entre époux. 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 ». Article 271 lists the assessment criteria, needs against resources, present and foreseeable: « La prestation compensatoire est fixée selon les besoins de l’époux à qui elle est versée et les ressources de l’autre ». Duration of the marriage, age and health, career sacrifices for children, and respective pension rights all count. One technical trap matters for older British couples: where the payment was fixed as a lifelong annuity (rente viagère), death of the debtor spouse does not end the story. The Court of Cassation recalled, on 21 June 2023, appeal No 21-17.077, that « Selon l’article 280 du code civil, à la mort de l’époux débiteur, le paiement de la prestation compensatoire, quelle que soit sa forme, est prélevé sur la succession. Le paiement est supporté par tous les héritiers, qui n’y sont pas tenus personnellement, dans la limite de l’actif successoral. Lorsque la prestation compensatoire a été fixée sous forme de rente, il lui est substitué un capital immédiatement exigible. » The verified text of Article 280 confirms it: « A la mort de l’époux débiteur, le paiement de la prestation compensatoire, quelle que soit sa forme, est prélevé sur la succession ». If your former spouse dies owing you a French annuity, claim against the estate quickly; if you inherit from a debtor, check whether substitution into immediately payable capital applies.

Finally, do not confuse the divorce with the matrimonial property regime (régime matrimonial), which decides who owns what and is governed by its own rules. A British couple married in England without a contract and living in France may well hold their French house under a community regime without realising it, and the regime decides the starting shares before any compensatory payment tops them up. Our detailed guide on that point is here: Married in England, Living in France: Which Matrimonial Regime Owns Your House. Read it alongside this article before you negotiate anything about the house.

II. Making the divorce count on both sides of the Channel: recognition, registration, enforcement and challenge

A. We divorced in England: is the decree valid in France, how do I update my French papers, and how do I fight it?

Since the end of the transition period, an English decree is the judgment of a third State: it no longer benefits from automatic recognition under Brussels II bis or Brussels II ter. Whether you need a French court order depends on what you want to do with the decree. To remarry in France, update your French civil-status records (état civil), or change your name on French papers, the authorities will want to see that France accepts the divorce; to seize a French bank account or force the sale of the French house under the English order, you need enforcement, and enforcement always requires a French court order called exequatur. Article 509 of the Code of Civil Procedure states the principle: « 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 ».

The conditions for that order were restated by the Court of Cassation on 2 December 2020, appeal No 18-20.691, a case about recognising an American divorce that applies identically to an English one: « 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 ». Three checks, in plain English. First, indirect competence: the English court must have had a genuine link to the dispute, typically habitual residence or domicile of one spouse in England. Second, compatibility with French international public policy (ordre public international) on substance and procedure: each spouse must have been able to be heard, and the outcome must not shock French fundamentals, for example by stripping a parent of all contact with the children or by validating a marriage contract point that French law treats as untouchable. Third, no fraud (fraude à la loi): spouses may not manufacture an English link purely to dodge French mandatory rules. In that 2020 case, the Court accepted that the American court’s indirect competence extended to incidental questions such as the nature of the matrimonial regime, a point English-decree holders should note when the London order also divides property.

In practice, the route runs as follows. For civil-status purposes, send the English decree, with a certified translation and proof that it is final (définitif), to the French prosecutor (procureur de la République) for transcription onto the margins of your French birth certificate and marriage record, and update the livret de famille (family record booklet). Allow months, not weeks, and chase. For money and property, apply for exequatur before the tribunal judiciaire; once granted, the English order becomes enforceable like a French judgment, and a French enforcement commissioner (commissaire de justice, formerly huissier) can seize or sell. For children, an English custody order likewise needs exequatur before French enforcement, without prejudice to emergency Hague Convention routes where a child has been wrongfully removed.

If you are on the receiving end of an English decree you consider unfair, France offers three lines of defence. Oppose exequatur by attacking one of the three conditions: show the English court lacked a genuine link, that you were not properly heard, or that the order offends French public policy, for instance by cutting off the children’s relationship with you. Run a French divorce in parallel and ask the French judge to decide differently; if the French judgment comes first and on the merits, it will weigh heavily against later enforcement of a contradictory English order. And appeal: exequatur decisions can be appealed to the cour d’appel, and points of law to the Court of Cassation. Keep every proof of service from the English proceedings; defective service is the most common ground on which foreign divorces fail the procedural public-policy check. Our general guide to getting foreign divorces recognised and registered in France complements this British-focused analysis: Divorced Abroad: Foreign Divorce Recognition and Registration in France.

B. We divorced in France: will England recognise it, and what happens to our English house, UK pension and the children?

The mirror question arises for the spouse returning to England with a French judgment in hand. English recognition law sits in Part II of the Family Law Act 1986 (official statute book): section 45 makes recognition of an overseas divorce depend entirely on sections 46 to 49 of the Act, which set the residence, domicile and validity conditions linked to the country that granted the divorce. In practice, a French judicial divorce pronounced after proceedings in which both spouses participated, where at least one spouse was habitually resident or domiciled in France, is normally recognised in England without a separate registration procedure; recognition can simply be raised when needed, for example on remarriage or in financial proceedings. Where the French divorce was the private-deed consensual divorce without any judge, expect closer scrutiny in England, because the English statute was written for divorces obtained by proceedings. This is one more reason for British couples with English assets to prefer the judicial route in France.

Recognition is only the beginning, because a French judgment does not automatically reach English assets. A French order for the prestation compensatoire does not directly attach a London salary or an English bank account; enforcement in England requires using English enforcement procedures, and orders over English land generally need an English order dealing with that land. Pension rights are the sharpest trap. A French judge can take English pension rights into account when fixing the compensatory payment, but the French order cannot itself split a UK occupational pension the way an English pension-sharing order can; conversely, an English pension-sharing order needs the pension scheme’s cooperation. Where substantial UK pensions exist, coordinate both proceedings from day one: the spouse who needs the pension share may need to ask the English court for financial orders even though the divorce itself runs in France, and delay can close that door.

For the children, the position is more coordinated than for money. Both countries apply the 1996 Hague Convention on parental responsibility, so a French custody and access decision travels better than a financial order, and wrongful removal from France to England, or retention in England after contact, triggers the 1980 Hague Convention return procedure with its six-week objective and strict deadlines. If your French judgment fixes the children’s residence with you in France, keep the school, medical and travel records proving habitual residence; if you are the English-based parent, exercise your court-ordered contact rigorously and document every refusal, because a pattern of obstruction changes later decisions. Where the French judgment is recent and the English court is asked to make a conflicting children order, the English court’s welfare analysis will give real weight to the existing French decision and to the desirability of avoiding conflicting orders.

Challenging a French divorce from England follows French procedural routes with short time limits. An appeal (appel) against a French divorce judgment generally must be lodged within one month of service, longer where service is abroad, and attacks on provisional measures have their own faster tracks. Late challenges to final judgments require exceptional routes such as third-party opposition (tierce opposition) or review (recours en révision) on narrow grounds like fraud or decisive documents withheld. The lesson is uniform on both sides of the Channel: do not sit on a foreign judgment you disagree with. Get advice in the country that issued it within days, preserve the service documents, and instruct lawyers in both countries who actually speak to each other before either court makes an order the other will have to live with.

Conclusion

Brexit replaced a single coordinated divorce by two potentially parallel divorces, and the spouse who understands that first keeps control. File where your life and your children’s life really are, because the French family-affairs judge is competent as soon as a connecting factor sits in France, and the English court will examine its own competence independently. Choose the forum with the financial remedy you actually need: the French compensatory payment for disparity, or English financial remedies with pension sharing for UK schemes. Then make the result travel: exequatur and transcription in France for English decrees, Family Law Act recognition and dedicated enforcement steps in England for French judgments. At every stage, keep the proof of service, respect the one-month appeal logic, and never assume that a decision about status automatically moves money, houses or pensions across the Channel. Done in the right order, a cross-Channel divorce ends cleanly in both countries; done in the wrong order, it produces two contradictory judgments and years of enforcement litigation.

Need a quick opinion on your case

Facing a divorce across France and England and unsure which court to file in first? Our firm offers a telephone consultation within 48 hours with a lawyer of the firm; first telephone consultation: 80 EUR incl. VAT. Call +33 6 46 60 58 22 or write via our contact page with your marriage date, residences, children’s situation and any papers already received from the other court.