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An Introduction to French Private Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2022

Jérôme Julien
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Extract

Private law is usually defined as all the rules of law which govern relationships between private individuals. Thus defined, it is opposite to public law and differentiated from ‘mixed law’ such as criminal law which has aspects of both. Of course, understanding private relationships between individuals, depend to a large extent on the country where they are observed and its history. French individualism (which of course does not exclude the general interest) which is notably embodied by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789 is doubtless at the heart of private law—I was going to say private law legislation—and is illustrated by the central place which is reserved for the law of private property. Private law therefore governs all relationships between individuals in all aspects of their lives: their private lives, their business relations, their working relationships, and so on.

Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Legal Information , Volume 50 , Issue 1-2 , Summer 2022 , pp. 43 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by International Association of Law Libraries

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Footnotes

1

© Jérôme Julien 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International Association of Law Libraries. This article contains remarks the author made at the Annual Course of the International Association of Law Libraries 39th Annual Course on International Law and Legal Information: The Triptych: National, European and International Law, The French Way, Toulouse, France, October 4 to October 7 2021.

References

2 Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy (Fourth Edition) Trans. By Cress, Donald A.. Hackett Publishing, Cambridge, 1998Google Scholar.

3 Id.

4 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Etienne-Marie-Portalis.

5 See, e.g. Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Napoleonic Code.” Encyclopedia Britannica, January 19, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Napoleonic-Code.

6 http://files.libertyfund.org/files/2353/CivilCode_1566_Bk.pdf.

7 Verne, Jules. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1916.

8 See, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stendhal-French-author.

9 “Le juge qui refusera de juger sous pretexte du silence, de I'obscurite ou de I'insuffisance de la loi. pourra etre poursuivi comme coupable de deni de justice” (art.4). See J. NORMAN. L'OFFICE DU JUGE ET LA CONTEST A TION (1965). Boileux, commenting on this article, observes. Let us remark here that the judge appointed to solve a litigation must perforce pronounce (doit necessairement prononcer); he is even forbidden to suspend sentence to consult with the legislator on the meaning of the law: such a consultation (rejerej would amount to a denial of justice, and denial of justice is punished by a fine …. “ J. M. BOILEUX. 1 COMMENT AlRE SUR LE CODE NAPOLEON 28 (6th ed. 1866).