Your mother has lived near Bergerac for twelve years. The memory clinic in Périgueux has just confirmed what the family feared: Alzheimer’s disease, and her judgment about money and paperwork is already unreliable. You live in Manchester. Your sister lives in Bristol. The French house, the French bank account and the daily decisions are in France, and the question pressing on you is brutally practical: who is legally allowed to act for her now, does the English Lasting Power of Attorney she signed years ago work in France, and what happens if you disagree with whatever a French judge decides?

This guide answers those questions under French law as it stands for British residents after Brexit. French protection law applies to anyone living in France whose faculties fail, whatever passport they hold: article 425 of the Civil Code opens protection to “Toute personne dans l’impossibilité de pourvoir seule à ses intérêts en raison d’une altération, médicalement constatée, soit de ses facultés mentales, soit de ses facultés corporelles de nature à empêcher l’expression de sa volonté peut bénéficier d’une mesure de protection juridique prévue au présent chapitre.” That single sentence, nationality-blind, is why a British parent in France goes through the French guardianship judge (juge des tutelles), with French medical certificates, French time limits and French appeals. Part I explains which measure the judge can order and how the case runs, including how to challenge it. Part II deals with the cross-Channel layer: the real limits of an English Lasting Power of Attorney in France, the French advance mandate that does the job instead, and how to remove someone who is mismanaging the estate.

I. The French protection order: which measure fits, and how the case runs

A. From short-term shelter to full representation: sauvegarde, curatelle, tutelle and habilitation familiale

French law refuses one-size-fits-all guardianship. Before ordering anything, the judge must check that no gentler solution already covers the person. Article 428 of the Civil Code provides: “La mesure de protection judiciaire ne peut être ordonnée par le juge qu’en cas de nécessité et lorsqu’il ne peut être suffisamment pourvu aux intérêts de la personne par la mise en œuvre du mandat de protection future conclu par l’intéressé, par l’application des règles du droit commun de la représentation, de celles relatives aux droits et devoirs respectifs des époux et des règles des régimes matrimoniaux, en particulier celles prévues aux articles 217 , 219 , 1426 et 1429 ou, par une autre mesure de protection moins contraignante. La mesure est proportionnée et individualisée en fonction du degré d’altération des facultés personnelles de l’intéressé.” In plain terms: necessity first, the least restrictive effective measure second, and a solution tailored to the actual degree of decline. A parent in early cognitive decline with a capable spouse, or with a valid French advance mandate already in place, may need no court order at all, and the judge must say why those routes are insufficient before reaching for curatelle or tutelle.

The lightest court-ordered shelter is the sauvegarde de justice (legal safeguard). It is temporary and flexible: the adult keeps the exercise of their rights, except for acts the judge specifically entrusts to a special agent (mandataire spécial), and it can be opened quickly while a fuller assessment is under way. Its strict time limit is what makes it an emergency tool rather than a settlement: “Sous peine de caducité, la mesure de sauvegarde de justice ne peut excéder un an, renouvelable une fois dans les conditions fixées au quatrième alinéa de l’article 442 .” That is article 439 of the Civil Code, and the consequence of missing the limit is lapse (caducité), not silent continuation. Families often meet sauvegarde first, for example when a hospital stay or a suspected scam requires immediate cover while the full medical file is assembled.

The middle tier is curatelle (supervised assistance). The person is not represented; they act themselves but must be assisted or controlled for the important acts of civil life. Article 440 of the Civil Code states: “La personne qui, sans être hors d’état d’agir elle-même, a besoin, pour l’une des causes prévues à l’article 425 , d’être assistée ou contrôlée d’une manière continue dans les actes importants de la vie civile peut être placée en curatelle. La curatelle n’est prononcée que s’il est établi que la sauvegarde de justice ne peut assurer une protection suffisante.” Within curatelle there are settings. Simple curatelle leaves day-to-day acts free and requires the curator’s assistance for significant ones; curatelle renforcée (enhanced curatorship) goes further, with the curator receiving the income alone on an account in the protected person’s name, paying third parties directly and leaving only the surplus at the person’s disposal. Either way, curatelle assumes the parent can still act and express wishes much of the time; it supervises rather than replaces.

Tutelle (full guardianship) is the heaviest measure: continuous representation in the acts of civil life. The same article 440 continues: “La personne qui, pour l’une des causes prévues à l’article 425, doit être représentée d’une manière continue dans les actes de la vie civile, peut être placée en tutelle. La tutelle n’est prononcée que s’il est établi que ni la sauvegarde de justice, ni la curatelle ne peuvent assurer une protection suffisante.” Advanced dementia, where the parent can no longer follow a bank statement, sign a coherent instruction or resist pressure, points here, but the judge must still record why the lighter measures would fail. Time limits discipline every measure: “Le juge fixe la durée de la mesure sans que celle-ci puisse excéder cinq ans.” That is article 441 of the Civil Code, which adds that for tutelle the judge may, by specially reasoned decision and matching medical opinion that improvement is out of the question on current scientific evidence, set up to ten years. Renewal is possible for the same period, and where the faculties plainly cannot improve, article 442 allows the judge, again by specially reasoned decision with matching listed-doctor opinion, to renew for a longer period of up to twenty years. Nothing here is indefinite by default; each extension must be justified and medically backed.

One more route matters enormously for British families: habilitation familiale (family authorisation). Where a relative is willing and able, the guardianship judge can authorise family members to represent, assist or act for the person without opening tutelle or curatelle at all. Article 494-1 of the Civil Code provides that “le juge des tutelles peut habiliter une ou plusieurs personnes choisies parmi ses ascendants ou descendants, frères et sœurs” and, unless the shared life has ended, the spouse, the partner bound by a civil solidarity pact (PACS) or the cohabiting partner, to represent the person or pass acts in their name under the section’s conditions. The circle is deliberately family-only, unlike tutelle and curatelle where a professional guardian can be appointed, and it can last up to ten years, renewable. For a British mother in France whose adult children live in Leeds or London, this is often the most attractive target: a son or daughter, even one resident in the United Kingdom, belongs to the eligible circle as a descendant, and authorisation keeps the family in charge rather than handing the file to a local professional. The official service-public.fr comparison page for these measures confirms the architecture and the durations in a single table, with tutelle and curatelle capped at five years, exceptionally ten on matching medical opinion, sauvegarde at one year, and habilitation familiale running up to ten years renewable, and it is the page to bookmark before any appointment with a French professional: Tutelle, curatelle, sauvegarde de justice d’un majeur – Service Public, alongside the dedicated family authorisation sheet at Habilitation familiale – Service Public.

B. Opening the case, the medical certificate, the hearing, and how to challenge the order

A case starts with a written application (requête) to the guardianship judge, and the circle of applicants is wide on purpose. Article 430 of the Civil Code states: “La demande d’ouverture de la mesure peut être présentée au juge par la personne qu’il y a lieu de protéger ou, selon le cas, par son conjoint, le partenaire avec qui elle a conclu un pacte civil de solidarité ou son concubin, à moins que la vie commune ait cessé entre eux, ou par un parent ou un allié, une personne entretenant avec le majeur des liens étroits et stables, ou la personne qui exerce à son égard une mesure de protection juridique. Elle peut être également présentée par le procureur de la République soit d’office, soit à la demande d’un tiers.” A child living in England can therefore apply directly as a relative, and where the family hesitates, anyone can alert the public prosecutor (procureur de la République), who can apply of their own motion. Distance from France is no bar to standing.

The make-or-break attachment is medical, not legal argument. Article 431 of the Civil Code requires: “La demande est accompagnée, à peine d’irrecevabilité, d’un certificat circonstancié rédigé par un médecin choisi sur une liste établie par le procureur de la République.” Any application without that detailed certificate from a listed doctor is inadmissible, full stop. Note what this means in practice: a GP letter, a hospital discharge summary or an English consultant’s report, however thorough, does not satisfy the rule. The listed doctor may seek the opinion of the person’s treating doctor, but the certificate itself must come from the list. Families who instruct a French solicitor first and chase the English paperwork later routinely lose months; the correct order is listed doctor first, application second, because the file cannot even be registered without the certificate.

The person to be protected is at the centre of the procedure, not an object on the file. Article 432 of the Civil Code provides: “Le juge statue, la personne entendue ou appelée. L’intéressé peut être accompagné par un avocat ou, sous réserve de l’accord du juge, par toute autre personne de son choix.” The judge hears the parent, who may bring a lawyer or, with the judge’s agreement, a trusted person such as a bilingual child who can help them follow the hearing. A hearing can only be skipped by specially reasoned decision on listed-doctor advice, where it would harm the person’s health or they are beyond expressing wishes. Once ordered, curatelle and tutelle judgments bind third parties only after publicity: “Les jugements portant ouverture, modification ou mainlevée de la curatelle ou de la tutelle ne sont opposables aux tiers que deux mois après que la mention en a été portée en marge de l’acte de naissance de la personne protégée selon les modalités prévues par le code de procédure civile.” That is article 444 of the Civil Code, and it explains why French banks and notaires check the margin note on the birth certificate: until that entry, the order is not yet fully effective against them, and even without it, anyone with personal knowledge of the order is bound.

Refusals and unwanted orders can be appealed, and the appeal rules are unusually open. Article 1239 of the Code of Civil Procedure states that “l’appel est ouvert aux personnes énumérées aux articles 430 et 494-1 du code civil, même si elles ne sont pas intervenues à l’instance”, so a sibling who stayed out of the first hearing can still appeal, and it continues: “Le délai d’appel est de quinze jours. Les parties ne sont pas tenues de constituer avocat.” Fifteen days is short, no barrister-style representation is mandatory, and article 1241 of the same Code fixes the starting points precisely: “Le délai d’appel contre les jugements statuant sur une mesure de protection à l’égard d’un majeur court : 1° A l’égard du majeur protégé, à compter de la notification prévue à l’article 1230-1 ; 2° A l’égard des personnes à qui le jugement doit être notifié, à compter de cette notification ; 3° A l’égard des autres personnes, à compter du jugement.” For a child in the United Kingdom who was never notified, time runs from the judgment itself, which makes monitoring the French file essential; waiting for a letter that may never come can silently close the appeal window.

Two rulings of the Cour de cassation show how these rules bite in real family disputes. In the first, decided on 24 January 2018 as appeal number 17-10.262 (Cour de cassation, première chambre civile, 24 janvier 2018, n° 17-10.262), the prosecutor had applied for protection and the listed facts appeared in documents annexed to the application rather than in the application itself. The Court approved the lower courts’ reasoning: “si l’article 1218 du code de procédure civile dispose que la requête aux fins d’ouverture d’une mesure de protection d’un majeur comporte, à peine d’irrecevabilité, l’énoncé des faits qui appellent cette protection au regard de l’article 428 du code civil, aucun formalisme particulier n’est exigé concernant cet énoncé”, adding “Qu’ayant relevé que l’énoncé des faits motivant la demande d’ouverture de la mesure de protection figurait dans les documents annexés à la requête, que le ministère public faisait siens, les juges du fond en ont exactement déduit que celle-ci était recevable”. For British families, the lesson is concrete: a prosecutor’s application supported by hospital or social-services reports adopted as its basis survives a purely formal attack, so challenge the substance, the diagnosis and the necessity, not the stapling. The same ruling settles a second painful question, who gets appointed. The court of appeal had preferred the local family-protection association (UDAF) over the brother living far away, and the Cour de cassation upheld that choice: “la cour d’appel a souverainement estimé, au regard de l’ensemble des difficultés rencontrées par la majeure protégée, que l’éloignement géographique de son frère ne lui permettait pas de garantir sa protection ; qu’elle a ainsi, répondant aux conclusions prétendument délaissées, statué dans l’intérêt de la personne protégée, sans méconnaître la priorité familiale ni la possibilité de diviser la mesure”. Family priority is real but not absolute: a child in Britain competing with a local professional or a nearby relative must show practical availability, visiting rhythm, language capacity and a plan for day-to-day decisions, because geographical distance can lawfully tip the appointment the other way. Proposing a split role, for instance one person for personal welfare and another for property, is expressly on the table since the Court confirmed the measure can be divided.

If the judge refuses any measure, or picks the wrong one, the response is the fifteen-day appeal, and if health later worsens, a fresh application with an updated listed-doctor certificate reflecting the new facts. Keep every notification, diary the appeal deadline from the judgment date where no notification reaches the United Kingdom, and get the appeal registered at the first-instance registry by recorded delivery where attendance in France is impractical.

II. The cross-Channel layer: English LPAs, French advance planning, banks and the house

A. What your English Lasting Power of Attorney can and cannot do in France

Many British parents signed an English Lasting Power of Attorney years ago, naming their children as attorneys for property and, sometimes, for health and welfare. Under English law the mechanics are straightforward. Under English law the mechanics are straightforward: the donor must be 18 or over and have mental capacity when the document is made, the LPA is then registered with the Office of the Public Guardian, a process the official guidance says takes 8 to 10 weeks where the application contains no mistakes, and registration costs £92 absent a reduction or exemption (Make, register or end a lasting power of attorney – GOV.UK). That registered LPA works across England and Wales for English banks, English land and English care decisions, and it remains the right tool for the parent’s English assets, English state pension paperwork and any property still held in the United Kingdom.

In France, the position is different in kind, not just in language. A French protection file opens only through the French route described in Part I: an application by a person with standing under article 430, a detailed certificate from a listed doctor under article 431 on pain of inadmissibility, a hearing of the person under article 432, and a French court order. No English deed, however properly registered with the Office of the Public Guardian and however impressively apostilled, starts that file or substitutes for the listed-doctor certificate. The reason is structural. Article 425 opens protection to any person unable to manage their interests, with no nationality condition, which means France asserts its own protective jurisdiction over residents and applies its own measures, its own appointed representatives and its own publicity through the margin note on the birth record under article 444. A French bank asked to hand over the parent’s accounts, or a French notaire asked to complete a sale of the house, works inside that system: expect to be asked for the French court order, the margin-note entry or proof that a French advance mandate has taken effect, because those are the instruments French third parties are bound by and can verify. An English LPA presented on its own answers a question French officials are not asking, namely who England and Wales authorises, rather than the question they must answer, namely who France has empowered.

None of this makes the English LPA useless. Keep it, keep it registered, and keep the attorneys’ details current, because it governs everything on the English side: operating English accounts, dealing with English letting agents or tenants, corresponding with HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions, and making health and welfare choices if the parent returns to England for care. Where English land must be sold to fund French care fees, the attorneys act under the LPA in England while the French representative acts in France; the two mandates run in parallel on their own territory. And because succession planning crosses the same border, read this together with the choice-of-law analysis for the French house: an English will can select English law for the estate, but it cannot appoint a guardian for life, which is why the will and the protection file must be prepared as a pair: British Will, French House After Brexit: Choosing English Law, Keeping Your Children Protected, and Challenging a Blocked Succession.

Practical consequences follow. First, do not wait for the crisis to discover the gap: a parent who still has capacity can put the French paperwork in place now, as section B explains. Second, when capacity is already doubtful, move on both tracks at once, using the English LPA immediately for English-side matters while the French application with its listed-doctor certificate is prepared. Third, budget for translation and legalisation of English documents the French file may still want as background, such as the diagnosis history or evidence of the attorneys’ conduct, even though they cannot replace the French certificate. Fourth, tell the English attorneys and the French-side family the same story: two countries, two instruments, each decisive on its own soil.

B. The French advance mandate, mismanagement, and removing a failing representative

France has its own advance-planning instrument, and it is the document a British resident should sign while capacity is intact: the mandat de protection future (advance protection mandate). Article 477 of the Civil Code opens it widely: “Toute personne majeure ou mineure émancipée ne faisant pas l’objet d’une mesure de tutelle ou d’une habilitation familiale peut charger une ou plusieurs personnes, par un même mandat, de la représenter pour le cas où, pour l’une des causes prévues à l’article 425 , elle ne pourrait plus pourvoir seule à ses intérêts.” One mandate, one or several chosen representatives, activated if and when the article 425 situation arrives. A parent in curatorship can still sign one, but only with the curator’s assistance. Parents can also sign for a vulnerable child, for the contingency where that child can no longer manage alone. For a British couple settled in France, reciprocal mandates naming each other first and the UK-based children as substitutes mirror exactly what the English LPAs do at home, except these mandates speak directly to French banks, French notaires and the French judge, in the language the French system verifies.

Signing early matters because capacity is judged at signing: once the listed doctor would certify that the article 425 situation has already arrived, the window for a mandate has closed and only the court route remains. Keep the signed mandate where the family can find it, tell the chosen representatives, and review it after major life events, a move back to England, a divorce, a falling-out or a diagnosis that changes everything. An out-of-date mandate naming an former spouse or an attorney who has since died invites exactly the court dispute it was meant to prevent.

But mandates can fail, and French law gives the family a sharp tool when they do. The Cour de cassation spelt out the remedy on 17 April 2019 in appeal number 18-14.250 (Cour de cassation, première chambre civile, 17 avril 2019, n° 18-14.250). A daughter acting under her father’s advance mandate had drawn up the property inventory late and incompletely, failed to declare wealth tax for two years triggering a tax reassessment, left one property’s situation unknown, produced no clear account of investments, income, account movements or spending with supporting documents, and used substantial sums without accounting for them. The Court held: “il résulte de l’article 483, 4°, du code civil que la révocation du mandat de protection future peut être prononcée par le juge des tutelles lorsque son exécution est de nature à porter atteinte aux intérêts du mandant”, and “aux termes de l’article 485, alinéa 1, du même code, le juge qui met fin au mandat peut ouvrir une mesure de protection juridique”. The statute behind the ruling is explicit about standing: article 483 lists as a ground for ending an active mandate “Sa révocation prononcée par le juge des tutelles à la demande de tout intéressé, lorsqu’il s’avère que les conditions prévues par l’article 425 ne sont pas réunies, ou lorsque l’exécution du mandat est de nature à porter atteinte aux intérêts du mandant.” Any interested person, including a child in Britain who spots unexplained debits on the parent’s French statements, can petition. And ending the mandate need not leave a vacuum, because article 485 provides: “Le juge qui met fin au mandat peut ouvrir une mesure de protection juridique dans les conditions et selon les modalités prévues aux sections 1 à 4 du présent chapitre.” The judge can also open a complementary court measure where the mandate’s scope protects insufficiently, entrusting it to the advance representative or authorising specific uncovered acts, with the two office-holders independent of each other but bound to inform each other of their decisions.

The same vigilance applies inside court-ordered measures. Tutelle and curatelle representatives handle other people’s money under judicial supervision, and the 2018 ruling above shows the appointment itself can be contested where family priority or distance was mishandled. Where a professional guardian or a relative drifts, the responses escalate in order: a written demand for accounts and documents, an alert to the guardianship judge who supervises the measure and can end, modify or replace it at any time, and, where misconduct is suspected, a report to the prosecutor alongside the fifteen-day appeal against any specific court decision. Preserve the bank statements, the tax notices and the inventory from the start of the measure, because the inventory operations themselves are regulated, with the protected person present where health permits and, absent a public officer, two independent adult witnesses, covering furniture, property valuations, valuables above 1,500 euros, cash and the state of bank accounts and investments. A representative who cannot produce that paper trail on demand is already in difficulty.

For the French house specifically, remember that protection and succession interlock. A sale or major transaction concerning the parent’s home passes through the representative’s powers as framed by the court order or the mandate, and what is done during protection counts at death: gifts, sales at undervalue and muddled accounts resurface in the succession arithmetic between siblings. Keeping the protection file clean, with every significant act documented and, where the order requires it, judicially authorised, is also what keeps the later succession file clean. That is the deeper reason to act early, choose representatives the whole family trusts, and challenge quickly when the wrong person holds the pen.

Conclusion

A British parent losing capacity in France is protected by French measures ordered by a French judge on French medical evidence, from the one-year sauvegarde de justice through supervised curatelle to full tutelle, with the family-only habilitation familiale often the best fit where willing relatives exist. Applications need a listed doctor’s detailed certificate, the parent is heard with a lawyer at their side, orders become fully effective against third parties through the birth-record margin note, and appeals run within fifteen days open even to relatives who never appeared. Alongside that system, the English Lasting Power of Attorney keeps its full value for English assets but does not replace the French order, while a French mandat de protection future signed in time does the advance-planning job on French soil, and any interested person can ask the judge to revoke a mandate whose performance harms the parent and replace it with a court measure. Distance between Manchester and the Dordogne complicates everything, but the procedure anticipates it: relatives abroad can apply, appeal and be appointed, provided they organise the medical evidence first, diary the short deadlines, and show the judge a practical plan for protection across the Channel.