France · The 2021 clawback · Status: August 2026 · Information, not legal advice — as at 25 August 2026
France’s forced-heirship clawback (article 913): where it stands in 2026
Since 1 November 2021, article 913 of the French Civil Code gives a child who is an EU national or EU-resident (or whose parent was) a compensatory clawback over assets situated in France, where the law governing the succession offers the children no protective mechanism at all. In 2025–2026 the pressure came off: France formally committed to a narrow reading — any genuine child-protection mechanism in the foreign law counts, including England’s Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 — and on 1 June 2026 the European Commission issued a pre-closure letter signalling the end of its complaint file. Current French practice reflects that reading: an English will electing English law is given effect. But the honest caveat belongs in every file: the Commission’s stand-down binds the Commission, not a French court; no French judge has yet ruled on the new article; and the notaire must still inform each child of the right. The clawback is dormant, not dead — which is exactly why plans that disinherit a child over French property should be built structurally, not rested on one contested reading.
No provision of French succession law has caused more cross-Channel anxiety this decade than the 2021 “clawback”. Here is what it actually says, what has happened since — including the 2026 turn in Brussels — and what a careful adviser tells a family today.
What the 2021 law did
By Law n° 2021-1109 (art. 24), France inserted a new third paragraph into article 913 of the Civil Code, for deaths from 1 November 2021. Where the deceased or at least one child is an EU national or habitually resident in the EU, and the law governing the succession permits no protective mechanism for the children at all, each child may take a compensatory levy (prélèvement compensatoire) over assets situated in France, up to the reserved share French law would have given them. It was drafted as a deliberate answer to the French courts’ own liberality: in the Jarre and Colombier cases (Cass. 1re civ., 27 September 2017), the Cour de cassation had held that a foreign law ignoring the French réserve is not, in itself, contrary to French public policy unless children are left in real need.
What the courts have said since
Three things — and one silence. The Conseil constitutionnel upheld the enacting law in 2021 without examining this article on the merits (its 2011 decision striking down the old, nationality-based 1819 levy is why the new version was drafted around EU residence instead). In February 2024 the European Court of Human Rights, in Jarre v France, held that France’s earlier refusal to apply forced heirship to foreign-law estates violated no human right — there is, said Strasbourg, no human right to inherit. And the silence: no French court has yet ruled on the new article 913 clawback itself — the provision only bites on deaths from late 2021, and the first disputes are still working their way up.
The Brussels row — and the 2026 turn
Practitioners across Europe complained to the European Commission that the clawback defies the EU Succession Regulation — the very Regulation that lets a testator elect their national law to govern the whole estate. The Commission opened a multiple-complaint file (CPLT(2022)03325), pressed France formally in July 2025 — and France answered in October 2025 with a restrictive-interpretation commitment: the clawback applies only where the foreign law contains no child-protection mechanism whatsoever. On that reading, English law is safe territory: the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 — under which a child can seek reasonable provision from an English court — counts as a protective mechanism. On 1 June 2026 the Commission issued a pre-closure letter signalling the file’s end on that basis. Current French notarial practice reflects this: an English will electing English law is given effect over French property — with the English position formally proven to the notaire, which is precisely the job of the certificat de coutume.
The honest caveat — dormant is not dead
Here is what a careful lawyer adds, and what the reassuring summaries leave out. The Commission’s stand-down binds the Commission — it does not bind a French judge. The “1975 Act counts” reading is a government commitment accepted by a regulator, not a court ruling; the counter-argument — that a discretionary, needs-based English remedy is nothing like a fixed continental reserved share — has never been tested before the Cour de cassation, and the Conseil constitutionnel has never examined the new article. Meanwhile the notaire settling any French estate has a statutory duty to inform each child individually of their rights — so a disappointed child of an English-law estate will hear about the clawback from the notaire himself, and a motivated one can still litigate it. The clawback, in short, is dormant but invocable.
What this means for your planning
Three practical rules. First, the election is still worth making — it settles the governing law, and on the current official reading it keeps the clawback asleep; without it, French law simply applies of its own force, reserved shares and all. Second, where the plan actually disinherits a child — blended families are the classic case — do not rest the whole estate on the untested reading: structure around it while planning, with the tools a French court respects, rather than betting on equivalence after a death. Third, watch the horizon: the first French appellate ruling on the new article, or any constitutional challenge, could move this overnight — this page is dated for a reason. Where French property and a delicate family are both in play, this is exactly the territory of a properly structured French plan and a written opinion on who inherits — stated plainly, signed, and current. (Status as at August 2026; this area is fast-moving and we re-verify it on every file.)