You married in England, built your life in France, and now the marriage is over. One of you wants to divorce in France, the other is threatening to file in London. The house is in the Dordogne, the children are at a French school, your pensions sit on both sides of the Channel, and each of you has heard that the law most favourable to you is the law of the other country. Since Brexit, that race to the courthouse matters more than ever, because the European rulebook that once organised divorces between France and the United Kingdom no longer binds the English courts. This guide explains, for a British reader living in France, which French court can hear your divorce, whether French or English law will govern it, what the French judge decides about the children, the money and the house, and how a French divorce decree works once you need it recognised in England. French legal terms are explained as they appear, and every decisive proposition is anchored to the exact French statute or court decision that supports it.
I. Which French court hears a British divorce and which law it applies after Brexit
A. Getting the divorce into the French court before England is seised
The first question is not who is right. It is which court is seised, meaning which court receives the divorce application first. Within the European Union, the règlement Bruxelles II ter, Council Regulation (EU) 2019/1111 of 25 June 2019 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of decisions in matrimonial matters (Brussels II ter), organises jurisdiction between Member States and provides that, where two Member State courts are seised of the same divorce, the court first seised in principle keeps the case. That priority rule is the reason London-versus-Paris races used to be won by whoever filed first. Since the end of the Brexit transition period, the United Kingdom is a third State for this instrument: Brussels II ter binds the French judge, but it no longer binds the English judge, so parallel proceedings in Nanterre and in London are possible and each court applies its own jurisdictional rules.
On the French side, jurisdiction over your divorce turns in practice on résidence habituelle, habitual residence. The Court of Cassation, the Cour de cassation which is France’s supreme court for civil matters, applies a European test with two limbs. In its judgment of 30 November 2022, First Civil Chamber, appeal no. 21-15.988, it held: Cass. civ. 1re, 30 Nov. 2022, no. 21-15.988 “Il résulte de la jurisprudence de la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne (arrêt du 25 novembre 2021, C-289/20) que la notion de résidence habituelle au sens de l’article 3, § 1, sous a), du règlement précité est caractérisée, en principe, par deux éléments, à savoir, d’une part, la volonté de l’intéressé de fixer le centre habituel de ses intérêts dans un lieu déterminé et, d’autre part, une présence revêtant un degré suffisant de stabilité sur le territoire de l’État membre concerné (point 57), l’environnement d’un adulte étant de nature variée, composé d’un vaste spectre d’activités et d’intérêts, notamment professionnels, socioculturels, patrimoniaux ainsi que d’ordre privé et familial, diversifiés (point 56).” In plain English: the French court looks at your intention to fix the centre of your interests in France and at a presence stable enough to prove it, weighing work, social life, property, private and family ties together. A British couple that has moved its home, its children and its daily life to France will normally satisfy that test, even if both spouses remain British nationals.
Once jurisdiction is established, the case goes to the juge aux affaires familiales, the JAF, the specialist family judge of the tribunal judiciaire, the ordinary civil court. Territorial competence inside France follows Article 1070 of the Code de procédure civile, the Code of Civil Procedure: Code of Civil Procedure, Article 1070. In short, the competent JAF is the judge of the place where the family residence is situated; if the parents live apart, it is the judge of the residence of the parent with whom the minor children habitually live where parental authority is exercised jointly, or of the parent who exercises it alone; otherwise it is the judge of the residence of the spouse who did not start the proceedings, while a joint application can be brought, at the parties’ choice, before the judge of the residence of either spouse. For a British family settled in France, that will usually mean the JAF of your French home. Practical consequence: if you want France to decide, file in France without delay, because an English petition issued first will not be stopped by Brussels II ter, and you could end up defending the money claims in two countries at once. If your spouse has already filed in England, tell your French lawyer immediately so the French application protects the children and the French property without contradicting the English proceedings.
B. French, English or another law: the Rome III choice and the four French divorce routes
Which court hears the case and which substantive law governs it are two different questions. In France, the applicable divorce law is decided by the règlement Rome III, Council Regulation (EU) No. 1259/2010 of 20 December 2010 on the law applicable to divorce and legal separation (Rome III), which France applies. Spouses may choose the applicable law, but only from a closed list. The Court of Cassation recalled the exact menu in its judgment of 26 January 2022, First Civil Chamber, appeal no. 20-21.542: Cass. civ. 1re, 26 Jan. 2022, no. 20-21.542 “« 1. Les époux peuvent convenir de désigner la loi applicable au divorce et à la séparation de corps, pour autant qu’il s’agisse de l’une des lois suivantes : a) la loi de l’État de la résidence habituelle des époux au moment de la conclusion de la convention ; ou b) la loi de l’État de la dernière résidence habituelle des époux, pour autant que l’un d’eux y réside encore au moment de la conclusion de la convention ; ou c) la loi de l’État de la nationalité de l’un des époux au moment de la conclusion de la convention ; ou d) la loi du for. »” The loi du for is the law of the court hearing the case. And the Court drew the practical conclusion that matters most for British couples: “Il en résulte que, lorsque des époux, dont la situation présente un élément d’extranéité, désignent, dans une convention de choix de la loi applicable au divorce, la loi d’un Etat déterminé, qui n’est pas l’une de celles qu’énumèrent les points a) à c), ce choix est valide, au titre du point d), lorsqu’elle est celle du juge qui a été ultérieurement saisi de la demande en divorce.” In other words, a choice-of-law agreement pointing to a specific State’s law is valid as a choice of the law of the forum where it turns out to be the law of the judge later seised of the divorce. For a British couple in France, that means you can validly agree, in writing, that French law will govern a divorce heard by the French judge, and that agreement will hold.
Form matters. Article 7 of Rome III requires the spouses’ choice-of-law agreement to be set down in writing, dated and signed by both of them, so that each spouse demonstrably knows what was chosen. If you have no agreement, Article 8 supplies a cascade, in order: Absent any choice, Article 8 of Rome III points to the law of the State where the spouses are habitually resident when the court is seised; failing that, to the law of the State of their last habitual residence, provided that residence ended less than a year before and one spouse still lives there; failing that, to the law of the State of which both spouses are nationals; and as a last resort, to the law of the court hearing the case. For most British couples living in France, the cascade stops at the first step: habitual residence in France at the date of the application, so French divorce law applies. Note the trap this sets for the spouse who moved back to England: if neither spouse still lives in the last common habitual residence and more than a year has passed, and both spouses are British, the court can still end up applying the law of its own forum. Behind Rome III sits the residual French rule, Article 309 of the Code civil, the Civil Code: Civil Code, Article 309 “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.” Since Rome III entered into force for France, it takes precedence for divorce and judicial separation within its scope, but Article 309 remains the safety net the French judge reaches for outside it.
French law then offers four routes to divorce, listed by Article 229 of the Civil Code: Civil Code, Article 229 “Le divorce peut être prononcé en cas : -soit de consentement mutuel, dans le cas prévu au 1° de l’article 229-2 ; -soit d’acceptation du principe de la rupture du mariage ; -soit d’altération définitive du lien conjugal ; -soit de faute.” The divorce par consentement mutuel, divorce by mutual consent, is now handled without a judge: each spouse has a lawyer, the agreement is signed as a private deed countersigned by the lawyers and deposited with a notaire, the public officer who authenticates family and property deeds. The three contentious routes go before the JAF. The divorce accepté, the accepted divorce, allows both spouses, or one of them, to ask for divorce where they accept the principle of the breakdown without regard to its causes. Article 233 states: Civil Code, Article 233 “Le divorce peut être demandé conjointement par les époux lorsqu’ils acceptent le principe de la rupture du mariage sans considération des faits à l’origine de celle-ci.” Once the judge is satisfied that each spouse freely agreed, Article 234 provides: Civil Code, Article 234 “S’il a acquis la conviction que chacun des époux a donné librement son accord, le juge prononce le divorce et statue sur ses conséquences.” The divorce pour altération définitive du lien conjugal, divorce for definitive alteration of the marriage bond, requires no fault: Article 237 provides Civil Code, Article 237 “Le divorce peut être demandé par l’un des époux lorsque le lien conjugal est définitivement altéré”, and Article 238 defines the test: Civil Code, Article 238 “L’altération définitive du lien conjugal résulte de la cessation de la communauté de vie entre les époux, lorsqu’ils vivent séparés depuis un an lors de la demande en divorce.” One year of separate lives at the date of the application is enough. Finally, the divorce pour faute, the fault divorce, requires serious misconduct. Article 242 provides: Civil Code, Article 242 “Le divorce peut être demandé par l’un des époux lorsque des faits constitutifs d’une violation grave ou renouvelée des devoirs et obligations du mariage sont imputables à son conjoint et rendent intolérable le maintien de la vie commune.” Fault must be proved with lawful evidence, and it colours the financial consequences, so it should only be chosen where the proof genuinely exists.
While the case runs, the JAF can order mesures provisoires, interim measures. Article 255 of the Civil Code empowers the judge to act, including: Civil Code, Article 255 “Statuer sur les modalités de la résidence séparée des époux” and “Attribuer à l’un d’eux la jouissance du logement et du mobilier du ménage ou partager entre eux cette jouissance, en précisant son caractère gratuit ou non”. In practice this is the order that decides who stays in the French house during the proceedings, who pays what towards the children’s upkeep, and what contact arrangements apply before the final judgment. Ask for these measures early: the spouse who leaves the house without an order often finds the situation frozen against them for the rest of the case.
II. Children, money and the French house: what the French judge decides and how it works in England
A. How the French judge settles the children and the money
Children come first, and French law starts from autorité parentale, parental authority, which both parents normally keep jointly after divorce. The judge then fixes where the children live. Article 373-2-9 of the Civil Code provides: Civil Code, Article 373-2-9 “la résidence de l’enfant peut être fixée en alternance au domicile de chacun des parents ou au domicile de l’un d’eux.” The résidence alternée, shared residence alternating between the two homes, can be ordered even provisionally where the parents disagree, for a duration the judge sets before deciding definitively. Where the residence is fixed with one parent, the same article continues: “Lorsque la résidence de l’enfant est fixée au domicile de l’un des parents, le juge aux affaires familiales statue sur les modalités du droit de visite de l’autre parent.” The droit de visite, the contact rights of the other parent, may in defined cases be exercised in a supervised contact centre. For a British family, the decisive factor is the children’s stability: French schooling, friendships, language and the practical distance between the two parents’ homes. A parent who announces a return to England should expect the judge to examine relocation with great care, because moving the children out of France changes their habitual residence and, with it, which country’s courts will decide their future.
Children old enough to understand can be heard. Article 388-1 of the Civil Code allows the hearing of the minor, the audition du mineur, and the Court of Cassation polices the procedure strictly. In its judgment of 12 July 2023, First Civil Chamber, appeal no. 21-19.362, it held: Cass. civ. 1re, 12 July 2023, no. 21-19.362 “Il résulte du premier de ces textes, que lorsqu’il a été procédé à l’audition d’un mineur en application de l’article 388-1 du code civil, il est fait, dans l’intérêt de l’enfant, un compte rendu de cette audition, soumis au respect du contradictoire.” A report of the child’s hearing must therefore be drawn up and disclosed to both parents so they can discuss it. A court of appeal that fixed a child’s residence after mentioning the child’s hearing, without any sign that the report had been communicated to the parties, saw its decision quashed. If your child is heard in your case, check through your lawyer that the report is in the file and that you have had the chance to respond to it.
Money divides into two layers. The first is the contribution à l’entretien et à l’éducation des enfants, each parent’s maintenance contribution for the children, proportionate to resources and the children’s needs, which continues regardless of contact arrangements. The second is the prestation compensatoire, the compensatory payment that offsets the disparity in living standards created by the divorce. Article 270 of the Civil Code provides: Civil Code, Article 270 “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.” The devoir de secours is the spouses’ duty of mutual support during the marriage, which ends with divorce and is replaced, where needed, by this lump-sum mechanism. Article 271 lists what the judge weighs: Civil Code, Article 271 “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”, taking into account in particular the length of the marriage, age and health, professional qualifications and situations, career sacrifices made for the children or for the other spouse’s career, the spouses’ existing and foreseeable assets and rights after liquidation of the matrimonial property regime, and, crucially for British couples, “leur situation respective en matière de pensions de retraite en ayant estimé, autant qu’il est possible, la diminution des droits à retraite qui aura pu être causée, pour l’époux créancier de la prestation compensatoire, par les circonstances visées au sixième alinéa.” English readers should grasp the structural difference: France does not split pension pots the way an English court can with a pension-sharing order. Instead, the judge values the pension gap, including a British state or occupational pension built up during the marriage, inside the compensatory payment.
The Court of Cassation watches that calculation closely. In its judgment of 13 April 2022, First Civil Chamber, appeal no. 20-22.807, it stated: Cass. civ. 1re, 13 April 2022, no. 20-22.807 “Il résulte du premier de ces textes que l’un des époux peut être tenu de verser à l’autre une prestation destinée à compenser, autant qu’il est possible, la disparité que la rupture du mariage crée dans leurs conditions de vie respectives. Selon le second, 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.” The Paris court of appeal had refused any payment because the wife had enjoyed free use of the former matrimonial home for nearly seven years. The Court of Cassation quashed that reasoning: taking into account the advantage of free occupation of the home, granted to the wife under the duty of support, in order to assess the disparity created by the divorce, violated the governing provisions. The lesson for British spouses is direct: free occupation of the French house during the proceedings is support, not compensation, and it does not cancel a claim for a compensatory payment assessed on needs, resources and foreseeable developments.
Divorce also rewrites gifts between spouses. Article 265 of the Civil Code provides: Civil Code, Article 265 “Le divorce emporte révocation de plein droit des avantages matrimoniaux qui ne prennent effet qu’à la dissolution du régime matrimonial ou au décès de l’un des époux et des dispositions à cause de mort, accordés par un époux envers son conjoint par contrat de mariage ou pendant l’union, sauf volonté contraire de l’époux qui les a consentis.” Matrimonial advantages taking effect only at death or at dissolution of the regime, and testamentary dispositions in favour of the spouse, are therefore automatically revoked by the divorce unless the granting spouse expressly maintains them. English wills naming the spouse, French marriage-contract clauses favouring the survivor, and death-linked gifts must all be reviewed the moment divorce is contemplated, not after the decree. Your régime matrimonial, the matrimonial property regime that governs who owns what, then has to be wound up, the liquidation, before a notaire, and the French house is divided or sold at that stage; the detailed mechanics of regimes, English marriages and French property are set out in our companion guide to British marriages, French houses and matrimonial regimes.
B. Making the French divorce count in England after Brexit
A French divorce decree does not automatically produce effects everywhere; recognition and enforcement must be organised country by country, and Brexit changed the map. Inside the European Union, a French divorce and its parental-responsibility orders circulate under Brussels II ter without any intermediate court validation, and the French court can issue the standard certificate that accompanies the judgment abroad. The official French guidance lists the divorce procedures, the compensatory payment, the division of property and the certificate for recognition of a foreign judgment concerning divorce or parental authority: service-public.fr, Divorce, séparation de corps. Ask your lawyer to obtain that certificate with the judgment; it is the document foreign authorities expect to see.
England is no longer inside that system. A French divorce must be recognised under English domestic conflicts rules, principally Part II of the Family Law Act 1986, which the English court applies to overseas divorces: Family Law Act 1986, Part II (legislation.gov.uk). In substance, England recognises a divorce that is effective under the law of the country where it was obtained, provided at least one spouse was habitually resident or domiciled there at the relevant date. A French decree pronounced by the JAF for a couple habitually resident in France therefore normally qualifies, which is why establishing French habitual residence at the outset protects you twice: it founds French jurisdiction and it secures English recognition. Keep the full French judgment, proof that it is final, and certified translations, because the English authorities and any future English proceedings will ask for them. The UK government’s general divorce guidance is the starting point for the English side of the mirror: gov.uk, Get a divorce.
Children’s orders need separate attention. Custody and contact decisions do not travel on the back of the divorce decree alone. Within the EU they move under Brussels II ter; between France and England they move through the 1980 Hague Convention on child abduction for wrongful removals and retentions of children under sixteen, and through bilateral recognition channels for custody orders: Hague Conference, 1980 Child Abduction Convention. Never relocate the children to England, or retain them there after a holiday, without the other parent’s written agreement or a court order: a unilateral move can trigger return proceedings to the children’s habitual residence and destroy your credibility before both courts. Maintenance for children and between spouses recovers across the Channel through the 2007 Hague Maintenance Convention channel and the central authorities, a slower administrative route that rewards precise French orders stating exact sums, indexation and payment dates: Hague Conference, 2007 Child Support Convention.
Finally, the French house itself is enforced where it sits. Even if an English court pronounces financial orders, the villa near Sarlat can only be transferred or sold under French law, through the notaire and the French land register, the publicité foncière, after liquidation of the matrimonial regime. Transfer taxes, the droit de partage, notaire fees and any capital-gains position must be costed before you agree a split, and any English order concerning French land should be drafted so that a French notaire can actually execute it. Sequence the work in this order: secure French jurisdiction early, fix the applicable law in writing where possible, obtain interim orders protecting the children and the house, negotiate the compensatory payment with pensions properly valued, wind up the regime before the notaire, and only then close the English recognition loop with complete, translated paperwork.
Conclusion
Divorcing in France as a British couple after Brexit is a two-country operation run from one courtroom. Win the jurisdictional question by filing before the French judge while your habitual residence is genuinely in France, choose the applicable law in a signed, dated writing where Rome III lets you, and pick the French divorce route that fits your situation rather than the one driven by anger. Treat the children as the court’s first concern, with their residence, contact and voice properly organised; value the compensatory payment with pensions included instead of expecting an English-style pension split; and review every gift and will the marriage created, because divorce revokes the death-linked ones by operation of law. Then make the French outcome portable: certificate with the judgment, final proof, translations, and a property settlement the French notaire can execute. Handled in that order, a French divorce stands up in England too, and the life you built in France can be unwound without losing the house, the children or the pension years along the way.