There does not seem to have been much attention paid to article 13 of this French Bill which has ben laid before the Assemblée Nationale.
n a bid to strengthen French secular republican values, the Macron Government proposed the Bill containing measures ostensibly designed to block and push back the current tendency towards sectarianist and comunautairianist (sic) disregard to the Republican principles undergirding the French constitution.
That, given the recent bloody events in France at la Bataclan and other public spaces, is of little surprise. The Projet de loi pour le réconfort des principes républicains is couched in such terms, and has now been laid before the Assemblée Nationale for full plenary, albeit virtual debate.
As a French national, I support the general principle.
However as a French national and at the present moment, still a European Union lawyer, I have great difficulty with the deliberately opaque article 13, which purports to reintroduce a tweaked version of what is known as the prélèvement successoral ruled unconstitutional by the Conseil Constitutionnel in 2011 in the Elke B QPC.
Contrary to what is heralded in the surrounding political bumph and introduction, article 13 is in blatant breach of other constitutionally protected principles, namely those enabling the EU Succession Regulation, and, if adopted without total redrafting, would mean that most British nationals and residents who have used the Regulation to regulate their successions in France would find these undone or at least undo-able by disgruntled heirs without a reference to the CJEU in Luxmbourg or an acceptance by a higher jurisdiction that the resulting law was not applicable or had to be restricted in its application.
This French attempted incursion into European Private international law needs to be watched carefully.
Please see the Overseas Chambers resources page for a further detailed commentary.
Peter Harris
Overseas Chambers