You divorced in England. The financial order gives you a share of your former husband or wife’s pension: 40 per cent of the fund, a pension credit in your name, clean break on everything else. Then you discover that part of that pension was built up in France, or that you now live in France and need the money here, and the French pension fund answers that it cannot do anything with an English order. No division, no credit, no payment. This is not an administrative error and it is not Brexit spite. It is the predictable collision between two systems that organise retirement in opposite ways, and this guide explains exactly where the English order stops, what French law offers instead, and how to enforce it. Written entirely in English for the British reader, with every French term explained at first use, it covers why an English pension sharing order has no automatic effect on a French pension, how recognition of English judgments works in France since Brexit, why a French pension has nothing for the order to attach to, which French claims replace the sharing mechanism, how the French family judge calculates them, and the step-by-step route to make the result enforceable, including how to challenge a refusal.

I. Why your English pension sharing order stops at the French border

A. After Brexit, an English financial order is a foreign judgment in France

In England and Wales, pension sharing is a standard tool of the financial settlement on divorce. The court makes an order addressed to the pension scheme itself, and the scheme carves out a pension credit for the former spouse. The official HMRC pensions manual confirms the starting point in plain terms: pension sharing occurs when a couple divorce, and it then describes the scheme role once a pension sharing order is made. The whole mechanism assumes a funded scheme with trustees or administrators who can be ordered to divide the pot. General information on the English divorce framework itself is published on the official divorce guide. None of this machinery exists on the French side, and since Brexit no European shortcut bridges the gap.

Before 2021, a single European rule decided which court heard a divorce first between Member States, and judgments then circulated almost automatically. The United Kingdom is now a third State for this purpose. An English decree and its financial order arrive in France as foreign judgments, and a foreign judgment that orders someone to pay or to transfer value does not enforce itself on French territory. To compel payment in France, the creditor historically needs exequatur, which is the French court procedure that declares a foreign judgment enforceable in France, after checking that the foreign court had jurisdiction from the French point of view, that due process was respected, and that the result does not offend French international public policy. The divorce itself, as a matter of personal status, is treated more liberally than the money attached to it: it is the financial provisions, the pension carve-out, the lump sum, the property transfer, that meet resistance at the border.

The European instrument that now governs divorce jurisdiction and recognition among the Member States is Council Regulation (EU) 2019/1111 of 25 June 2019 on jurisdiction, the recognition and enforcement of decisions in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility, and on international child abduction (Brussels II ter). Read its title carefully: it covers the marriage tie and the children, not the division of pensions or property. Pension rights on divorce fall outside it, and in any event it no longer binds the United Kingdom. On the French side, cross-border movement of judgments runs through the domestic procedural framework, including Article 509-1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and through case-by-case applications to the French courts. The practical consequence is simple: your English pension sharing order is, in France, a piece of paper with persuasive value but no direct grip on a French pension fund, until a French judge has either enforced it through exequatur or, far more often, replaced its economic result with a French remedy. Our general guide to divorcing in France after Brexit, which court takes the case and how recognition works in both directions, is the companion to this article and should be read alongside it: Divorcing in France After Brexit: Which Court, Which Law, the Children, the House and How to Enforce It in England.

Three further points follow from this status. First, the law that governs your divorce in France is often French law itself. Article 309 of the Civil Code provides that divorce is governed by French law where both spouses are French nationals, where both are domiciled in France, or where no foreign law claims competence while the French courts have jurisdiction: “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 a British couple settled in France, the second branch routinely points to French law, whatever the English order says. Second, the French family judge, called the juge aux affaires familiales and usually shortened to JAF, is the natural forum for the money claims described below, and Article 1070 of the Code of Civil Procedure sends you in principle to “le juge du lieu où se trouve la résidence de la famille”, the judge of the place where the family home is. Third, none of this means the English order is worthless in France: it is evidence of what has already been decided and paid, it frames the needs of each side, and concealment of what it awarded is far more dangerous than disclosure, as the ruling discussed in Part II shows.

B. A French pension is not a pot of money, so there is nothing to attach the order to

The deeper reason the English order fails is structural. Statutory French retirement works by répartition, the pay-as-you-go method in which today’s contributions pay today’s pensions, and each worker accumulates rights recorded as quarters and points rather than money in an individual pot. The basic scheme for private-sector employees is run through the CNAV network, and the compulsory supplementary scheme through AGIRC-ARRCO, and both record entitlements, not capital. An English pension sharing order instructs scheme trustees to split a fund and create a pension credit in the former spouse’s name. Addressed to a French caisse de retraite, the order points at nobody: there are no trustees, no fund, no account in your name to credit. The caisse cannot invent a pension credit that the statute does not provide for, and it will not try.

This is not a refusal to recognise England. It is the same answer any foreign sharing order would receive, because the object it purports to divide does not exist in French law. Contrast the English funded occupational scheme, where the HMRC manual can sensibly set out the scheme’s role once the order is made, with the French statutory scheme, where there is no scheme role to set out. Even within England, orders against unfunded public-service pensions require special implementation routes precisely because there is no pot to split; against a French répartition scheme, the difficulty is absolute rather than technical.

Two partial mitigations exist, and both must be stated exactly for what they are. The first is the pension de réversion, the survivor’s pension that each French scheme may pay to a surviving former spouse after death, but only under that scheme’s own strict conditions, as a fraction of the deceased’s pension, and never as a division of rights during the divorce itself. It is a death benefit with conditions, not a divorce settlement, and it must never be presented as the equivalent of a pension share. The second concerns the funded corner of French retirement saving, principally the plan d’épargne retraite, universally called the PER, and ordinary life-insurance savings. A PER holds capitalised savings in an individual account, and that capital is an asset like any other: it can be valued, attributed and offset when the matrimonial property is liquidated, which is the French procedure, conducted before a notaire, the public officer who authenticates the deed, in which the spouses’ property regime is wound up and each side’s share is fixed. Capitalised savings therefore re-enter the picture through property law rather than pension law, which is exactly where French judges are comfortable working.

The property regime, called the régime matrimonial, decides what falls into that liquidation. Most couples married without a French marriage contract and living in France fall under the communauté d’acquêts, the community of acquisitions, in which Article 1401 of the Civil Code states: “La communauté se compose activement des acquêts faits par les époux ensemble ou séparément durant le mariage, et provenant tant de leur industrie personnelle que des économies faites sur les fruits et revenus de leurs biens propres.” Couples who signed a separation-of-property contract live instead under séparation de biens, where Article 1536 of the Civil Code provides that each spouse keeps administration, enjoyment and free disposal of personal property: “chacun d’eux conserve l’administration, la jouissance et la libre disposition de ses biens personnels”. For a British couple, the applicable regime may itself depend on private international law, including the 1978 Hague Convention on matrimonial property, but the working point is practical: identify the regime first, because it decides whether the savings built during the marriage, including funded pension savings, are divided as common assets or kept apart, and the English sharing order answers none of these questions for you.

II. What to claim in France instead, and how to make it stick

A. The French substitutes: the compensatory payment, the property liquidation and maintenance

French law does not split pensions, but it refuses to leave the economically weaker spouse unprotected, and it does so through the prestation compensatoire, the compensatory payment that offsets the disparity in living standards created by the divorce. Article 270 of the Civil Code states the rule in terms that must be quoted exactly: “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. Cette prestation a un caractère forfaitaire. Elle prend la forme d’un capital dont le montant est fixé par le juge.” Three features matter for a British reader. The divorce ends the devoir de secours, the duty of support between spouses, and replaces it with a one-off balancing payment. That payment is forfaitaire, meaning fixed once and for all rather than open-ended. And it normally takes the form of capital, a lump sum fixed by the judge, which makes it the natural French vehicle for the economic value that an English pension sharing order would have delivered over time: the judge capitalises the pension gap into present money.

The calculation is governed by Article 271 of the Civil Code: “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.” Needs on one side, resources on the other, assessed at the divorce with foreseeable developments in view. The official public-service summary confirms the everyday meaning: after divorce, the former spouse may have to pay a compensatory payment set either by the spouses or by the JAF at the divorce, as the service-public guide explains. For the pension-gap case, foreseeable developments expressly include retirement: a spouse who gave up work or worked part-time while the other accumulated full French quarters and AGIRC-ARRCO points will draw a smaller pension for the rest of her or his life, and that lifelong shortfall belongs in the assessment.

Two recent rulings of the Cour de cassation, France’s supreme court for civil cases, sharpen the method, and both concerned Franco-foreign elements directly relevant to British readers. In the first, decided on 10 December 2025 as appeal number 24-13.557, the Court restated the statutory formula and then drew two consequences that lower courts must respect: the ruling holds 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, et, d’autre part, que c’est au moment du prononcé du divorce, qui met fin au devoir de secours, que le juge doit se placer pour la fixer”. In plain English: a judge may not refuse the payment on the ground that the gap already existed before the wedding, because the payment protects the parity the marriage itself provided, and the judge must assess the position at the divorce, when support ends. For the British spouse who arrived in the marriage with little French pension history while the other had a full career, that holding removes the easiest route to a refusal.

The second ruling, given the same day as appeal number 23-22.356 after a Paris appeal decision, addresses the exact overlap that defeats so many Anglo-French cases: the boundary between dividing property under a foreign law and awarding the French compensatory payment. The Paris court had refused the payment because the liquidation of the matrimonial property was governed by English law, which blends compensation, sharing and needs, and had asked a notaire to run the division accordingly. The Cour de cassation quashed that reasoning. It recalled that the payment is assessed “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”, taking into account in particular “le patrimoine estimé ou prévisible des époux, tant en capital qu’en revenu, après la liquidation du régime matrimonial”, while the rights that may result from that liquidation must not themselves be counted when measuring the disparity, even where the liquidation follows a foreign law with its own balancing mechanisms. It added, for the cross-border dimension, that the applicable law for this kind of maintenance claim is that of the habitual residence of the creditor: “la loi applicable est celle de la résidence habituelle du créancier”. Three lessons follow. The French payment survives alongside a foreign-law property division and must be decided separately. The property received on liquidation counts as background wealth, not as a substitute that cancels the disparity. And for a British creditor living in France, French law will normally govern the claim, which brings the case back to Articles 270 and 271 and to the pension gap capitalised as a lump sum.

Procedure protects this method through disclosure. Article 272 of the Civil Code obliges each side to give the judge a sworn statement of means: “les parties fournissent au juge une déclaration certifiant sur l’honneur l’exactitude de leurs ressources, revenus, patrimoine et conditions de vie”. Resources, income, assets and living conditions, certified on honour. The English order, the English pension valuation, the French career statement called the relevé de carrière, the French tax notices: everything goes on the table. The price of concealment is shown by a third ruling, given on 7 May 2025 as appeal number 23-18.558, where a wife who had obtained a French compensatory payment assessed on full resources then sought exequatur in France for a German pension-splitting decision, and the French courts refused, for reasons connected with that earlier nondisclosure, before the Cour de cassation dismissed her appeal: “REJETTE le pourvoi”. The message for British litigants is blunt: declare the English pension share, credit what has already been paid or secured under the English order against what is claimed in France, and ask the French judge to top up the difference through the compensatory payment, because a judge who discovers a hidden English pension credit will treat the whole claim with suspicion.

As to form, Article 274 of the Civil Code leaves the judge a free choice of modalities: “Le juge décide des modalités selon lesquelles s’exécutera la prestation compensatoire en capital parmi les formes suivantes : 1° Versement d’une somme d’argent”, payment of a sum of money, with the pronouncement of the divorce capable of being made conditional on guarantees, alongside attribution of property or of rights of use, habitation or usufruit, the usufruct being the lifelong or temporary right to use another’s property and take its income. In pension-gap cases, counsel should therefore plead in the alternative: a lump sum reflecting the capitalised pension shortfall as the primary claim, attribution of a share of funded savings such as the PER or of equity in the French home as the secondary claim, and, where children remain dependent, the ordinary contribution to their maintenance and education in addition, since the compensatory payment belongs to the former spouse and never replaces child support.

B. The enforcement route step by step, and how to challenge a refusal

Put the pieces together and the route runs as follows. First, seize the right judge. For a couple living in France, that is the JAF of the family home, since Article 1070 of the Code of Civil Procedure designates “le juge du lieu où se trouve la résidence de la famille”. File where the family lives, not where the English order was made, and if the family has already split between France and England, take advice on forum before filing anywhere, because parallel proceedings in both countries remain possible after Brexit and the first court seized does not automatically block the second.

Second, plead the applicable law as French law wherever the facts allow, relying on Article 309 of the Civil Code: two spouses domiciled in France divorce under French law, and a British couple settled in France with a withdrawal agreement card, a long-stay visa or a French tax domicile will normally satisfy that test. Third, build the file the French way. The sworn declaration required by Article 272 is the backbone: both sides’ resources, income, assets and living conditions certified on honour. Around it, assemble the English financial order with a certified translation, the English pension valuation showing the cash equivalent and the sharing percentage, proof of what has actually been implemented in England and what has not, the French relevé de carrière for each side, AGIRC-ARRCO point statements, the last French tax notices, and the marriage contract or a statement that there is none, so the notaire can later liquidate the regime on a clear basis.

Fourth, frame the claims so that each French tool does the job it is designed for. Ask the JAF for a prestation compensatoire expressly quantified to capitalise the pension disparity, showing the yearly shortfall at retirement age and the lump sum that offsets it, supported by the needs-and-resources analysis of Article 271 and by the case law that forbids refusing it merely because the gap predates the marriage, per the December 2025 ruling. Ask for the liquidation of the matrimonial property to capture funded savings, including the PER, under Article 1401 or Article 1536 according to the regime, while keeping that division analytically separate from the compensatory payment, per the second December 2025 ruling. Reserve exequatur for the parts of the English order that genuinely need it in France, typically orders over French-situated assets such as the house, rather than wasting costs asking a French court to enforce a pension split against a caisse that has no power to execute it. Once a French judgment orders payment, enforcement runs through the huissier de justice, now titled commissaire de justice, the sworn officer who serves the judgment and seizes assets, and a French order needs no exequatur to bite on French bank accounts, wages or property.

Fifth, know the remedies if the answer is no. A JAF judgment is appealed within one month of service, and the appeal re-examines the needs, resources and property picture, which is precisely where pension-gap cases are won or lost on better evidence. A refusal of exequatur for the English order is itself open to appeal, and an appeal in cassation lies for errors of law, as the three rulings cited here demonstrate. The most common and most avoidable causes of refusal are an incomplete sworn declaration, an English pension valuation missing or untranslated, silence about sums already received under the English order, and a claim framed as enforcement of the English pension share rather than as a French compensatory payment, which invites the court to answer that it has no power to split the pension and to stop there. Present the English order as the starting point of the story and the French payment as its lawful French ending, and the court has a path it can follow.

Two final cautions close the route. Limitation and timing matter: claims for the compensatory payment belong in the divorce proceedings themselves, and revisiting them afterwards is narrowly confined, so the pension argument must be raised at the divorce, not years later when the smaller pension actually arrives. And coordination between the two countries must be managed as one strategy: custody of the children, use of the French home, English implementation of the English share against English schemes, and French compensation for the French gap are four fronts of a single case, and concessions made hurriedly in England to buy a quick decree can reduce what remains claimable in France. The English pension sharing order did its job against English funds; the French compensatory payment, the property liquidation and, where needed, exequatur do the rest against French reality.

Conclusion

An English pension sharing order does not divide a French pension, not because France ignores England, but because a pay-as-you-go pension contains no fund to divide and no trustee to obey the order. Since Brexit the English order stands as a foreign judgment whose financial provisions need a French enforcement route, and the European regulation that organises divorce recognition among Member States does not allocate pension rights. The French answer is a different architecture with the same economic purpose: a lump-sum compensatory payment that capitalises the disparity in living standards, calculated on needs and resources with retirement in view; a liquidation of the matrimonial property that captures funded savings; maintenance where children require it; and enforcement through French judgments executed by the French enforcement officer. The Cour de cassation has fixed the method in rulings handed down in 2025: pre-marriage gaps do not bar the payment, the assessment is made at the divorce, foreign-law property divisions do not absorb the French claim, and concealment of what was already obtained abroad destroys credibility. Bring the English order, its valuation and proof of implementation into a complete sworn file, ask the family judge for the French payment that prices the pension gap, and enforce that judgment in France. That is how the share England promised becomes money France can actually deliver.