Administrative law lawyer Paris: defending individuals and businesses against the administration.

In principle, every application addressed to the administration must receive an acknowledgement of receipt (Article L. 112-3 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration), except for abusive applications and certain applications defined by decree. The text also covers complaints and informal or hierarchical administrative appeals, which are applications within the meaning of the same Code (Article L. 110-1). The absence of this acknowledgement is not without effect: the time limits for challenge cannot be enforced against the applicant where the acknowledgement was not sent or does not contain the required information (Article L. 112-6). There is, however, a qualification. If the administration duly notified an express decision before the end of the period after which an implied decision could arise, the lack of an acknowledgement no longer protects the applicant. The firm therefore starts by gathering proof of the filing date, then checks whether an express reply was notified, and on what date. This check is worthwhile even when the application seems old, because the unenforceability of the time limits can reopen a challenge thought to be closed. The court does, however, accept limits based on legal certainty, presented below for decisions notified without any statement of time limits.

No. The principle laid down in Article L. 231-1 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration is that silence kept for two months amounts to acceptance. Article L. 231-4 nevertheless sets that principle aside in several cases: an application that does not seek an individual decision, an application that does not form part of any procedure provided for by a text, a complaint or administrative appeal, an application of a financial nature, relations between the administration and its staff, and cases set by decree. The period itself may change: where the application is incomplete, the acceptance period runs only from receipt of the documents required by the applicable provisions and requested by the administration (Article L. 114-5). Finally, some legislation provides its own procedure. The Council of State (Conseil d'État) thus held, for an export certificate for cultural goods, that the suspension procedure provided by the Heritage Code prevented a tacit approval from arising where the applicant did not provide the required proof, and dismissed the appeal (CE, 13 February 2026, No. 497557). Before relying on an approval, the firm identifies the text governing the application, the list of exceptions that applies and the date on which the file was actually complete.

An implied decision of rejection is not unlawful merely because no reasons are given, even where an express decision would have had to state them (Article L. 232-4 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration). The same article nevertheless provides a simple step: the person concerned may ask for the reasons for that decision, provided they do so within the time limit for judicial challenge. The administration must then provide them within one month of the request. This step affects the timetable: the time limit for challenging the implied decision is extended until two months have elapsed from the day the reasons were provided. For a business awaiting an authorisation, the benefit is twofold. It learns what the refusal rests on, which makes it possible to correct the file or target the challenge, and it keeps the time needed to go to court. The firm sends this request by a means that allows its date to be proved, then compares the reasons provided with the documents filed and with the conditions laid down by the applicable text.

In principle, no. Decisions imposing a sanction must state their reasons (Article L. 211-2 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration) and, on that basis, they are taken only after the person concerned has been enabled to submit written observations, and oral ones on request (Article L. 122-1). The person may be assisted by counsel or represented by an agent of their choice. The adversarial principle is not limited to an exchange of letters. In a vocational training inspection, the Council of State held that an administration intending to rely on information obtained from third parties must inform the body inspected of its source and content, in sufficient detail for it to be able to discuss it; it annulled the remainder of the repayment decision (CE, 20 October 2021, No. 438193). Some sanction regimes add their own safeguards, which must be read alongside the general code. The firm requests disclosure of the file, identifies the third-party documents used, then drafts observations that answer each complaint and, if necessary, prepare the challenge before the court.

It can, but within a narrow framework. Of its own initiative or at a third party's request, the administration may withdraw or repeal a decision creating rights only if it is unlawful and within four months of its being taken (Article L. 242-1 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration). Article L. 242-2 provides two exceptions with no time condition: the repeal of a decision whose continuation depends on a condition that is no longer met, and the withdrawal of a subsidy whose conditions were not complied with. An act obtained by fraud may also be withdrawn or repealed at any time (Article L. 241-2), and special texts may set other rules (Article L. 241-1). The Council of State has clarified that the judicial annulment of a withdrawal does not start a new four-month period for withdrawing the reinstated decision again (CE, opinion, 26 July 2018, No. 419204). An irregular withdrawal may also engage the liability of the administration. In a case decided under the former Law of 12 April 2000, which then set a two-month period for withdrawing a tacit authorisation where third parties had not been informed, the Council of State quashed the judgment that had dismissed the causal link even though the withdrawal was late, and referred the case back (CE, 12 October 2026, No. 498435). The firm checks the date of the authorisation, whether it was express or tacit and the procedure followed before the withdrawal.

Yes, if the date of dispatch can be proved. Any administrative decision may be the subject, within the time limit for judicial challenge, of an informal or hierarchical administrative appeal which interrupts that time limit (Article L. 411-2 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration). The Council of State held, in a decision published in its reports, that in assessing whether an administrative appeal sent by post preserves the time limit, the date to be taken into account is the date of dispatch, the postmark being proof; it annulled the judgment that had relied on the date of receipt at the town hall (CE, 30 June 2025, No. 494573). This rule is without prejudice to particular texts, such as those that set time limits in hours. In practice, a registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, kept with its proof of posting, remains the safest way of dating the appeal. Silence kept for two months on an informal administrative appeal amounts to rejection (Article L. 231-4), and a new two-month period then opens to go to court. The firm calculates these deadlines from the documents and sets a dispatch date that leaves a margin, rather than relying on the last day.

Not as a general rule. An informal or hierarchical administrative appeal is optional: it interrupts the time limit for judicial challenge, but the court can be seized directly. Some texts, on the contrary, impose a mandatory prior administrative appeal before any referral to the court. In that case, the decision taken on that appeal replaces the initial decision (Article L. 412-7 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration) and it is that decision that must be challenged. The refusal of such an appeal must, moreover, state its reasons (Article L. 211-2, 8°). The substitution does not remove the irregularities committed at the outset. The Council of State (Conseil d'État) held that an architect struck off the register could rely, against the decision taken on their mandatory appeal, on the irregularity of the procedure followed before the striking off, in particular the absence of an adversarial procedure; it annulled the contrary judgment and referred the case back (CE, 3 July 2020, No. 431922). The firm checks in the applicable text whether the prior appeal is mandatory, before which authority and within what time limit, because a direct referral to the court would then be inadmissible.

Administrations are required to disclose the administrative documents they hold to those who request them, subject to the exceptions provided by the Code (Article L. 311-1 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration). Some documents can be disclosed only to the person concerned, in particular those touching on private life or commercial secrecy or containing an assessment of a person (Article L. 311-6). In the event of refusal, referral to the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (CADA) is a mandatory first step before any judicial challenge (Article L. 342-1). The timetable that follows is precise. The Council of State held that, in the absence of an express decision, an implied decision confirming the refusal arises two months after the CADA's request for an opinion is registered, and that the two-month time limit for challenge runs from that date; it annulled the order that had set the time limit too early (CE, 19 June 2020, No. 435004). For an SME, a request for disclosure often makes it possible to obtain the inspection report or technical opinions before replying. The firm words the request so as to designate the documents precisely, then follows the CADA and court time limits.

Not necessarily. Article L. 123-1 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration lays down what is known as the right to make an error. A person who has failed for the first time to comply with a rule applicable to their situation, or who has made a clerical error in declaring their situation, cannot be sanctioned by a financial penalty or by the loss of all or part of a benefit where they have regularised their situation, on their own initiative or after being invited to do so within the time set. The safeguard has limits written into the text. It does not apply in cases of bad faith or fraud. Nor does it apply to sanctions required by European Union law, to those that directly protect public health, the safety of persons and property or the environment, to sanctions provided for by a contract, or to sanctions imposed by regulatory authorities on the professionals they supervise. The firm therefore first checks whether the error is the first, whether it was regularised and within what time, then whether the sanction regime in question is among the exclusions, before asserting this protection with the department.

Yes, on certain conditions. Article L. 312-3 of the Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration allows anyone to rely on the interpretation of a rule, even an erroneous one, contained in an instruction or circular of the central and decentralised State administrations published on the websites designated by decree, for as long as that interpretation has not been changed. The Council of State, in a published opinion, clarified the scope of this safeguard: the interpretation must be relied on in accordance with its terms, and it must not affect the situation of third parties or stand in the way of rules that directly protect public health, safety or the environment (CE, opinion, 14 October 2022, No. 462784). The same opinion also sets its limit. The general guidelines defined for granting a measure of favour, to which the person has no entitlement, cannot be relied on in this way, even if published; the opinion so held for a circular on the regularisation of foreign nationals. It specifies, by contrast, that guidelines may be relied on before the court without any condition of publication on those websites. The firm checks the publication of the document, its date and the exact nature of its content before relying on it.

It can, even though it creates no right to its fulfilment. A logistics company argued that a municipality had not provided the rail connection it had promised and that it had had to bear extra transport costs. The administrative court of appeal had dismissed the causal link solely on the ground that a promise is not a decision creating rights. The Council of State held that reasoning to be wrong, annulled the judgment and referred the case back (CE, 23 June 2023, No. 454844). The ruling does not fix the compensation: the court to which the case was referred must still assess the loss claimed and its direct and certain link with the fault. Before asking the court for a sum of money, a prior claim must be addressed to the administration, since the application is admissible only after its decision (Article R. 421-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice). Before the court of first instance, this type of claim in principle requires a lawyer to act (Article R. 431-2), subject to the exceptions in Article R. 431-3, including disputes where the defendant is a local authority. The firm gathers the written commitment, the exchanges that preceded it and the accounting evidence of the loss.

Yes. Article 111-5 of the Criminal Code gives the criminal court jurisdiction to interpret administrative acts and assess their lawfulness where the outcome of the trial depends on it. The Criminal Chamber restated this in these terms: “Criminal courts have jurisdiction to interpret administrative acts, whether regulatory or individual, and to assess their lawfulness where the outcome of the criminal trial before them depends on that examination” (our translation) (Cass. crim., 11 February 2025, No. 24-81.272). In that planning-penalty case, the court of appeal had refused to examine the lawfulness of the recovery notices for lack of prior challenges; the Court of Cassation quashed the judgment, holding that it was for the court to assess that lawfulness “without being able to set against it the absence of prior challenges” (our translation) (Cass. crim., 11 February 2025, No. 24-81.272). The Criminal Chamber has also accepted that a criminal court may examine the conformity of a decree with the Constitution where the law it applies merely refers to the regulatory power; it noted that the legislative text “did not in itself contain any substantive rule that would prevent the conformity of the decree with constitutional norms from being examined by the criminal court” (our translation) (Cass. crim., 29 January 2019, No. 17-84.366). The firm examines the act on which the prosecution is based before building the criminal defence.

A dispute with an administration in principle falls within the jurisdiction of the administrative court. Voie de fait (unlawful administrative action so serious that it removes the administrative character of the act) is the best-known exception: it requires an infringement of individual liberty or the extinction of a right of property, caused by the irregular forced execution of a decision or by a decision manifestly incapable of being linked to a power of the administration. The conditions remain strict, as a decision unfavourable to the owners shows. Private individuals complained that a municipality had felled, without authority, a hedge planted on their land and asked the ordinary court to order restoration. The Third Civil Chamber raised of its own motion that the ordinary court had no jurisdiction, on the ground that this felling, even without authority, “does not stem from an act manifestly incapable of being linked to a power belonging to the administration and does not have the effect of extinguishing a right of property” (our translation) (Cass. 3e civ., 24 October 2019, No. 17-13.550). The owners were referred to the administrative courts. Going to the wrong court wastes time and can jeopardise time limits. The firm therefore classifies the interference before choosing the court; outside voie de fait, the administrative court can be seized, where appropriate by urgent application (référé) if the conditions of Article L. 521-1 or of Article L. 521-2 of the Code of Administrative Justice are met.

Time limits for challenge can be enforced only if they were stated, together with the available routes of challenge, in the notification of the decision (Article R. 421-5 of the Code of Administrative Justice). This rule does not, however, open an unlimited period. The Council of State holds that the principle of legal certainty prevents an individual decision that has been notified, or of which the person concerned has become aware, from being challenged indefinitely. As a general rule, and unless the applicant relies on particular circumstances, the challenge must be brought within a reasonable time which cannot exceed one year from notification or from the knowledge acquired. It is for the applicant to rely on the circumstances that would justify a longer period, failing which the application may be rejected by order. In the case decided, a civil servant had applied to the court in June 2014 against orders of which they had become aware in 2011; even accepting that the routes and time limits had not been indicated to them, the application was rejected and so was their appeal (CE, 10 February 2020, No. 429343). The outcome is therefore unfavourable to anyone who waits. Where an old decision raises difficulty, the firm looks for the date on which you became aware of it, the administrative appeals already brought and any particular circumstances, before assessing whether a challenge remains possible.