New Law on Divorce

Written by Phil Heinlein

From Reporter Issue 105

BREAKING UP IS NEVER EASY …
... but changes in the law recently voted by the French parliament are going to make it easier. Phil Heinlein reports.

The French don’t seem to hesitate much about getting divorced. Each year around 120,000 of them get unwed and that means one marriage in three (one in two in Paris and on the Côte d’Azur) is doomed to failure. Last year the tribunal de grande instance in Nice pronounced 1749 divorces; that of Grasse was close behind with 1728 such rulings. Lawyers, of course, aren’t complaining about these figures but judges and court officials are less enthusiastic. In both TGIs some one fifth of working time is taken up with divorce cases.

This is, by the way, the best time of year for divorce lawyers. As one of them told me, “At the rentrée our in-trays are always full. Why? Well, one reason is that during the summer vacation a shaky marriage often gets to a crunch point and a couple decide that’s it and they’re soon in a lawyer’s office. And in this region that constant ebb and flow of people across half the year means there’s a lot of opportunity for playing away and that again leads the couple to go for a split. All very sad but that’s the way it is.”

“A simpler and shorter procedure”
Well, anyone who’s in that position today should wait a while. Next year the divorce laws here change and cutting free from an unhappy marriage will become a simpler and shorter procedure. The changes in legislation just passed are one component of the governement’s drive to reform family law and, as a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice put it, “to adapt to conjugal reality”. Whether the modification of the law will make divorce necessarily cheaper is a moot point. When I put the question to my lawyer informant he smiled knowingly: “I wouldn’t count on that. We’ve still got to sort out all the consequent issues — alimony, custody of children, division of property and the rest — but now we’ll usually have to do it in a shorter time. The same work, less time to do it. I don’t think that justifies a reduced fee, do you?” Hmm … Anyway, my advice would be, unless your case looks complicated, to go for a younger lawyer who will work for a relatively moderate amount. Currently the average cost of a divorce is around 2300 euros though you can do it more cheaply.

So, briefly, what’s changed? The commonest form of divorce in France — sur requête conjointe, where both spouses agree to the split (which is about half of all cases) — has been notably simplified. Under the existing law (in force till December 31st) there are two hearings. At the first of these the judge — juge aux affaires familiales — explores the possibility of reconciliation and then sends the couple off to rethink their situation; three months later there is a second hearing when the judge, if no reconciliation has been achieved, sorts out the details of the divorce settlement. Under this year’s reform the couple will appear only once before the judge who will proceed immediately to the settlement. My lawyer had mixed feelings about this: “I have to admit that the reconciliation thing is a bit of a fantasy. Almost no couples in my experience in Grasse come back to the judge and say they’ve changed their minds and want to stay together. On the other hand, I think there’s a danger with this new system that the settlement could get rushed and that might create problems later.”

“Between 5 … and 15 years”
Around two-fifths of divorces currently are pour faute in which one spouse alleges a matrimonial offence on the part of the other. This often entails much bitterness. From next year the definition of faute will be effectively narrowed to cases of domestic violence — and, good news for women (or, okay, men) who are being systematically thumped by their spouses — judges will have the power to evict the violent partner from the home even before the divorce has been pronounced. Another significant change, finally, concerns divorce on the grounds of incompatibility — altération définitive du lien conjugal — at the demand of one of the spouses. This will be pronounced after two years of separation rather than six as at present. Maybe all this is irrelevant to you, or you hope it is. You’re in for the long haul. For your information: most divorces in France are of couples who’ve been married for between 5 … and 15 years.

© Phil Heinlein

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