You married in England, built a life in France, and the marriage has broken down. Since Brexit, the question British residents ask first is the wrong one. Instead of asking whether to divorce in England, they should ask whether the French court will deal with the divorce, under which law, and whether England will recognise the result. The answer is reassuring on the first point and tricky on the last. If you both live habitually in France, the French family court has jurisdiction, and in most cases French law will govern the divorce itself. But the route you choose in France — the quick no-judge mutual-consent divorce or a divorce before a judge — changes what happens to the money, the children and the house, and it changes how easily England recognises your new single status. This guide explains the four French doors into divorce, how the compensatory payment for the weaker spouse really works, what French law says about your children and your French home, and the recognition trap that catches British couples who pick the fastest procedure without checking their domicile. Every rule below is drawn from the statute in force and from recent decisions of the Cour de cassation, the highest French civil court, quoted in full so you can check them.

I. Which French court can divorce you, which procedure fits, and which law applies

A. The family court on your doorstep, the four doors into divorce, and the no-judge route with its traps

Divorce in France belongs to one judge: the juge aux affaires familiales, usually shortened to JAF, the family-affairs judge sitting at the tribunal judiciaire, the ordinary civil court of each area. The Code of Civil Procedure gives the local rule in Article 1070: “Le juge aux affaires familiales territorialement compétent est : – le juge du lieu où se trouve la résidence de la famille”. In plain terms, the competent family judge is the judge of the place where the family home is. If you have separated, the text continues with the fallback — the judge where the parent with whom the minor children habitually live resides — and it closes with the timing rule: “La compétence territoriale est déterminée par la résidence au jour de la demande”, meaning territorial jurisdiction is fixed by where you live on the day the application is filed. For a British couple living in Dordogne, that means Sarlat, not London. In Paris and the Île-de-France, where many British residents are concentrated, the family chamber of the Paris tribunal judiciaire handles a heavy caseload, so filing a complete, agreed file matters more there than anywhere: an incomplete application simply waits.

Once the court is identified, French law offers four doors, listed in Article 229 of the Civil Code: “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.” That is, mutual consent in the case set out at Article 229-2 paragraph 1, acceptance of the principle of the breakdown, final alteration of the marriage bond, and fault. The same article opens with the sentence that changed French divorce practice in 2017: “Les époux peuvent consentir mutuellement à leur divorce par acte sous signature privée contresigné par avocats, déposé au rang des minutes d’un notaire.” Spouses may consent mutually to their divorce by a private deed countersigned by their lawyers and filed with a notary. Here avocat means a French-qualified lawyer, and notaire means the French public officer who authenticates and keeps deeds — not an English notary public. This is the divorce without a judge, and it is now the standard route for couples who agree on everything.

The no-judge route runs in four steps, and each step has a tripwire. First, each spouse must have their own lawyer; one lawyer for both is forbidden. Second, each lawyer sends the draft agreement to their own client by recorded delivery, and Article 229-4 of the Civil Code provides that it is “un projet de convention, qui ne peut être signé, à peine de nullité, avant l’expiration d’un délai de réflexion d’une durée de quinze jours à compter de la réception.” The draft may not be signed, on pain of nullity, before a fifteen-day reflection period from receipt has expired. Sign on day fourteen and the whole divorce is void. Third, both spouses and both lawyers sign together, and the original is filed with a notary, who checks the formal requirements. Article 229-1 of the Civil Code states that “Lorsque les époux s’entendent sur la rupture du mariage et ses effets, ils constatent, assistés chacun par un avocat, leur accord dans une convention”, and adds the sentence that gives the document its muscle: “Ce dépôt donne ses effets à la convention en lui conférant date certaine et force exécutoire.” Filing gives the agreement effect by conferring a certified date and enforceability on it. Force exécutoire, enforceability, means a bailiff can enforce maintenance or the transfer of the house without going back to court. Fourth, the marriage ends by the agreement itself: Article 260 of the Civil Code provides that “Le mariage est dissous : 1° Par la convention de divorce conclue par acte sous signature privée contresigné par avocats, à la date à laquelle elle acquiert force exécutoire”. The marriage is dissolved by the agreement on the date it becomes enforceable.

But two situations shut the no-judge door, and both matter greatly to British families. Article 229-2 of the Civil Code, in the version verified for this guide, provides that spouses cannot take the no-judge route — “Les époux ne peuvent consentir mutuellement à leur divorce par acte sous signature privée contresigné par avocats lorsque” — in two cases: a minor child who, informed of the right to be heard, asks to see the judge, or a spouse placed under a legal protection regime such as guardianship. In either case the couple must divorce before the judge, through the judicial mutual-consent divorce. British parents should take the first exception seriously: French practice requires the parents to inform the child, and a teenager who wants to speak to the judge sends the whole file to court. Where agreement fails on any point — the house, the money, the children — the remaining three doors open before the JAF. Acceptance of the principle means both agree the marriage is over but ask the judge to settle the consequences. Final alteration covers the spouse who has lived apart: Article 238 of the Civil Code provides that “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 life at the date of the application suffices — reduced from two years by the 2019 reform, a detail many English-language guides still get wrong. Fault remains available but is rarely sensible for Britons: it demands proof of a serious breach making common life intolerable, turns the file adversarial, and changes nothing about the money either spouse receives, save in the narrow case examined below.

B. The law that governs your divorce when England is still in the picture

Two Britons divorcing in France face two conflicts questions: which court has jurisdiction, and which substantive law the judge applies. Jurisdiction first. Within the European Union, jurisdiction in divorce is governed by the Brussels II ter Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2019/1111, whose general rule gives jurisdiction to the courts of the Member State where both spouses are habitually resident. Habitual residence means the real centre of your life — home, work, children at school — not your passport. A British couple settled in France, even retaining British nationality and English domicile, is habitually resident in France, so the French court has jurisdiction, and it does not need permission from any English court. Since Brexit, England applies its own jurisdictional rules, and an English court may theoretically also be seised, but for a family genuinely living in France the French forum is the natural and unchallengeable one. The practical advice is simple: file where you live, and file once — parallel proceedings in two countries multiply costs and create conflicting orders about the same children.

Applicable law second, and here France participates in a tailor-made European instrument, the Rome III Regulation, Regulation (EU) No 1259/2010, which the United Kingdom never joined and which no longer binds English courts, but which binds the French judge even when both spouses are British. Rome III lets spouses choose the applicable law from a short menu, and the Cour de cassation has just clarified how wide that choice is. In a decision of 26 January 2022, First Civil Chamber, appeal number 20-21.542, available on the Court’s official site at Cour de cassation, 26 January 2022, no. 20-21.542, the Court quoted Article 5 of the Regulation: spouses may designate “a) la loi de l’État de la résidence habituelle des époux au moment de la conclusion de la convention”, “b) la loi de l’État de la dernière résidence habituelle des époux”, “c) la loi de l’État de la nationalité de l’un des époux”, or “d) la loi du for”, the law of the court seised. It then held, in a passage worth quoting in full: “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.” Where spouses with a foreign element designate a given State’s law which is none of those at (a) to (c), the choice is valid under (d) where it is the law of the court later seised of the divorce petition. For British spouses in France, the lesson is concrete: a choice-of-law clause for French law, signed before a French notary while living in France, will be upheld by the French court as the law of the forum, even if neither spouse is French. Conversely, a clause purporting to impose English law on a French judge faces the mirror test — English law qualifies only through nationality or a shared English residence, and proving English law to a French court means paying for an expert certificate of foreign law, a slow and expensive detour most couples should avoid.

Without any choice, Rome III supplies a cascade, and its first step decides nearly every British case in France. Article 8 of Regulation (EU) No 1259/2010 then supplies a cascade for spouses who chose nothing: the divorce is governed by the law of the State where the spouses are habitually resident when the court is seised, failing that the State of their last habitual residence where one of them still resides, failing that the State of their shared nationality, and failing that the law of the court seised. Two Britons habitually resident in France when the petition is filed will therefore almost always divorce under French substantive law — French grounds, French compensatory payment, French rules on children — even if they married in England under English law. Nationality only matters at step (c), where both spouses share it, and the law of the forum closes the cascade at step (d). One more distinction protects readers from a frequent confusion: the law governing the divorce is not the law governing what you own. The matrimonial property regime — who owns the French house and in what shares — follows its own conflicts rules, typically the law of your first habitual residence after marriage, and it is examined in detail in our companion guide on which matrimonial regime owns your French house when you married in England and live in France. The divorce dissolves the marriage; the regime decides who leaves with what. Keep the two questions separate and you will understand your French lawyer’s advice twice as fast.

II. Money, children and the house — then getting England to recognise the outcome

A. The compensatory payment, the children, and the French home

English readers arrive with the vocabulary of ancillary relief — needs, sharing, compensation, pension sharing orders — and must translate it into a single French institution: the prestation compensatoire, the compensatory payment. Article 270 of the Civil Code defines it in terms the Cour de cassation repeats constantly: “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.” One spouse may have to pay the other a payment aimed at compensating, as far as possible, the disparity that the breakdown creates in their respective living conditions; it is a lump-sum, fixed-amount capital sum set by the judge. Three features surprise British spouses. First, it is capital, not maintenance: French law prefers a clean break paid as a lump sum or as-property transfer, and monthly payments over time are the exception requiring special justification. Second, there is no pension-sharing order in France; instead, diminished retirement rights feed into the calculation. Article 271 of the Civil Code opens with the master rule — “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 payment is set according to the needs of the recipient and the resources of the payer, looking at the situation at the divorce and its foreseeable development — and its list of factors expressly includes each spouse’s position on retirement pensions, “en ayant estimé, autant qu’il est possible, la diminution des droits à retraite” caused to the creditor spouse by career sacrifices during the marriage. The British wife who paused work to raise children in France, losing years of UK National Insurance contributions and French pension quarters, states that loss under Article 271; she does not get an English-style pension attachment. Third, disparity alone is not enough: it must result from the breakdown. The Cour de cassation hammered this home on 30 November 2022, First Civil Chamber, appeal 21-12.128, at Cour de cassation, 30 November 2022, no. 21-12.128: “l’existence d’une disparité dans les conditions de vie des époux à la date de la rupture s’apprécie au regard des ressources, charges et patrimoine de chacun des époux au moment du divorce, ainsi que de leur évolution dans un avenir prévisible, et qu’elle n’ouvre droit au bénéfice d’une prestation compensatoire au profit de l’époux qui subit cette disparité que si celle-ci résulte de la rupture du mariage, à l’exclusion de toute autre cause.” Disparity is assessed on resources, charges and assets at the divorce and their foreseeable development, and it opens the right to a payment only if it results from the breakdown, to the exclusion of any other cause.

Two recent decisions show how strictly the Court polices the assessment, and both are directly useful to British litigants. On 10 December 2025, First Civil Chamber, appeal 24-13.557, at Cour de cassation, 10 December 2025, no. 24-13.557, the Court quashed a refusal of payment where the appeal court had reasoned that the disparity predated the marriage: “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.” A difference in professional or financial situation existing before the marriage cannot justify refusing the payment, since it aims to preserve the parity the marriage ensured, and the judge must stand at the date the divorce is pronounced, which ends the duty of support. A British husband who married a lower-earning wife cannot therefore defeat her claim by showing she always earned less; the question is the gap the divorce leaves, measured at the divorce. Earlier, on 4 July 2018, First Civil Chamber, appeal 17-20.281, at Cour de cassation, 4 July 2018, no. 17-20.281, the Court quashed an award for two mirror-image errors: the appeal court had ignored sums the husband paid for his daughter’s maintenance, which “constituant des charges, devait venir en déduction de ses ressources” — being charges, had to be deducted from his resources — and had failed to ask whether the wife shared her expenses with her new partner. Child maintenance you pay counts against your resources; a new partner’s contribution to your ex-spouse’s household counts in their favour. British payers should therefore arrive with bank statements proving every transfer, and British recipients living with a new partner should expect the question. One equitable escape exists for the payer: Article 270 allows the judge to refuse any payment “si l’équité le commande”, if fairness so requires, considering the Article 271 criteria, or, in the words of Article 270 of the Civil Code, “lorsque le divorce est prononcé aux torts exclusifs de l’époux qui demande le bénéfice de cette prestation” — where the divorce is granted on the exclusive fault of the spouse claiming it. Fault in France is not the English conduct bar; it is a narrow forfeiture for the spouse exclusively to blame.

Children come next, and French starting principles differ from English instincts in wording more than in outcome. Article 373-2 of the Civil Code provides: “La séparation des parents est sans incidence sur les règles de dévolution de l’exercice de l’autorité parentale.” Separation leaves the rules on exercising parental authority — autorité parentale, the French bundle of rights and duties toward the child — untouched: joint exercise remains the default, and sole exercise must be justified. The same article carries the warning that relocating British parents most often miss: “Tout changement de résidence de l’un des parents, dès lors qu’il modifie les modalités d’exercice de l’autorité parentale, doit faire l’objet d’une information préalable et en temps utile de l’autre parent.” Any change of residence by either parent, where it alters how parental authority is exercised, must be notified to the other parent beforehand, in good time. Moving the children back to England, or even from Bordeaux to Lille, without prior notice can be held against you at the next hearing, and in a cross-border case it can shade into wrongful removal. Day-to-day contact, holiday division and the contribution to the children’s maintenance and education — the French equivalent of child maintenance, fixed in proportion to each parent’s resources and the child’s needs — are set in the divorce agreement or by the JAF “selon ce qu’exige l’intérêt de l’enfant”, according to what the child’s welfare requires, with enforcement available through direct payment collection and, for eligible families, the family-benefits fund acting as intermediary. Where the parents agreed everything in a no-judge divorce, the filed agreement governs; where they did not, the JAF decides and revisits on proof of changed circumstances.

The French house is usually the largest asset and the greatest source of mistakes. The divorce ends the marriage; the matrimonial property regime ends with it and must be liquidated — wound up — with the shares determined by the regime, not by the divorce. Couples married in England without a contract who then lived in France are commonly surprised to learn that French conflicts rules may treat them as married under a community regime for property acquired during the marriage, as explained in our guide on which matrimonial regime owns your French house. Practically, liquidation means valuing the house, deciding who keeps it with what balancing payment — the soulte, the equalisation sum — or selling and dividing the price, and paying the partition tax, the droit de partage. Article 746 of the General Tax Code sets the current rate: “Ce taux est ramené à 1,80 % à compter du 1er janvier 2021 et à 1,10 % à compter du 1er janvier 2022, pour les partages des intérêts patrimoniaux consécutifs à une séparation de corps, à un divorce ou à une rupture d’un pacte civil de solidarité”. Partitions following divorce now bear 1.10 per cent, a deliberate reduction English-language guides still frequently misstate at the old 2.50 per cent. Budget for it, mandate the notary early, and remember that keeping the house with a soulte still needs a bank willing to fund one borrower alone — French lenders re-underwrite, and a British borrower whose income is in sterling should secure the offer before signing any agreement that assumes it.

B. Will England recognise your French divorce, and what to do so it does

This is where Brexit changed the plumbing. Before the end of the transition period, a French divorce circulated in England almost automatically under the old Brussels IIa Regulation. Since 1 January 2021, recognition in England is governed by domestic law: Part II of the Family Law Act 1986. The gateway provision, section 46 of the Family Law Act 1986, draws a distinction most couples have never heard of, between divorces obtained “by means of proceedings” and those obtained “otherwise than by means of proceedings”. For the first category — a divorce granted by a judge — subsection (1) provides for recognition of an overseas divorce obtained by means of proceedings where it is effective under the law of the country in which it was obtained and where, at the relevant date, either party to the marriage was habitually resident in, domiciled in, or a national of that country. A French judicial divorce, effective in France, where either spouse was habitually resident in France when proceedings began, is therefore recognised in England as of right. For the British couple living in France who divorce before the JAF, there is no recognition problem at all.

The no-judge mutual-consent divorce sits in the second category, and that is the trap. A private deed filed with a notary involves no court and no proceedings, so subsection (2) applies, with its harsher test: recognition requires effectiveness under French law plus domicile — habitual residence is not enough — and, crucially, subsection (2)(c) adds a further condition: neither party to the marriage was habitually resident in the United Kingdom throughout the year immediately preceding that date. Read that carefully. A British couple habitually resident in France but still domiciled in England — domicile of origin is sticky, and many expatriates never acquire a French domicile of choice — who sign a no-judge divorce may find England refusing recognition if either of them was habitually resident in the United Kingdom during the preceding year. Boarding-school runs and extended family stays do not create habitual residence, but a genuine year-long return by one spouse, or a recently arrived couple still within their first French year, can. The consequence of non-recognition is not theoretical: in England you would still be married, unable to remarry anywhere, with your English pension administrator, your English bank and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs all treating you as a spouse. Two precautions follow. First, couples with any recent English residence, any doubt about domicile, or any English assets whose holder will ask for proof of divorce should prefer the judicial mutual-consent divorce — same agreement, pronounced by the JAF — which falls under subsection (1) and its comfortable habitual-residence test. It costs a little more time and a court fee, and it buys recognition certainty. Second, whatever the route, assemble the recognition file at once: the French marriage certificate with the divorce noted in the margin, the enforceable agreement or the judgment with proof it is final, a sworn English translation by a certified translator, and, where the receiving body asks for it, the Hague apostille. English institutions cannot work from a French deed they cannot read, and the time to translate is before the pension fund suspends payment, not after.

Recognition runs both ways, and the mirror question arises when one spouse has already divorced in England and the other needs France to accept it. French courts recognise foreign divorces that are effective in their country of origin and not contrary to French international public policy, with regularity of the foreign procedure checked; an English final order, properly translated and with evidence of finality, is normally received without difficulty. The friction points are the financial orders attached to it: an English pension-sharing order does not execute itself against a French pension fund, and an English property-adjustment order over a French house needs the French notary and, where contested, the French enforcement judge. Tell your French lawyer about every English order on day one, bring the sealed orders and translations, and do not assume that because the divorce is recognised, its financial machinery travels with it.

Conclusion

A British couple living in France divorces in France, normally under French law, before the family judge of the family home — or, if they agree on everything and no child asks to see the judge, by a lawyer-drawn agreement filed with a notary that becomes enforceable on filing and ends the marriage on that date. The money follows the compensatory logic of Articles 270 and 271: a capital sum closing the gap the breakdown created, measured at the divorce, with pre-marriage disparity no defence and proven charges properly deducted. The children stay under joint parental authority, with any move notified in advance, and the French house is liquidated under the matrimonial regime at a 1.10 per cent partition tax. Finally, the route chosen in France decides the reception in England: a judicial divorce travels under section 46(1) on habitual residence alone, while the no-judge deed must satisfy the stricter domicile test of section 46(2). Choose the procedure with both countries in view, prove every payment, translate every deed, and the divorce that ends your marriage in France will end it in England too.