French Law of Obligations (FRENCH-CONTRACT)

(février 2022)

French Law of Obligations – Jean-Sébastien Borghetti

The aim of this course is to offer an introduction into the French law of obligations in a comparative perspective.

After a general introduction on French civil law, the course will focus on what the French Civil Code (code civil) calls the sources of obligations, namely contracts (les contrats), torts (la responsabilité délictuelle) and unjust enrichment (l’enrichissement injuste et les quasi-contrats).

French law makes a distinction between the general rules on contracts (le droit commun des contrats) and rules which are specific to certain types of contracts, such as the contract of sale (le droit des contrats spéciaux). Only the general rules will be considered here, which deal both with the formation and the performance of contracts. 

French law recognizes several heads of liability in tort. The course will focus on the most important ones, including liability for fault (la responsabilité pour faute), liability for things (la responsabilité du fait des choses), liability for others (“la responsabilité du fait d’autrui”), and traffic accidents liability (la responsabilité du fait des accidents de la circulation).

Unjust enrichment is a relatively minor source of obligations in French law and will be considered last.

Throughout the course, comparisons will be made with the way in which the issues under scrutiny are dealt with in the other major European legal traditions, namely Common Law and German law.