Having your foreign divorce recorded on your French civil status documents

If you are a political refugee in France, you must not contact the authorities of your home country.

Instead, you can contact an organisation offering free services called an “association” specialised in the rights of refugees.

The decision of the foreign judge, and any other official document in a foreign language, must be translated by a sworn translator “traducteur assermenté”.

You can find one:

• by searching online
• by requesting a list of “traducteurs assermentés” from the embassy of your country of origin in France
• by requesting a list of sworn “traducteurs assermentés” from the court of appeals or “cour d’appel” of your place of residence.

This type of translation costs between €30 and €80 per page, on average.

This step only applies to you if you have a French birth certificate because you were born or naturalised in France.

If this is the case, first check that the French authorities have recorded your foreign marriage before asking them to recognise your divorce. To do this:

• Contact the authority that holds your birth certificate to receive a full copy of the birth certificate or “copie intégrale de l’acte de naissance” and check that your marriage has been recorded there. Who to contact:
  • If you were born in France, the town hall of the town or city where you were born.
  • If you have been naturalised in France, the specialist department of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs called “Service Central d’Etat Civil”, located in Nantes. You can apply for it online on this website.

If your marriage has not been recorded on your birth certificate, you will also need to provide a copy of your marriage certificate with a translation of it in your file.

There is a principle of free movement of judgements within the European Union, which means that a divorce decision granted in one Member State will be recognised by the other Member States.

Your lawyer must ask the court that granted your divorce for a document known as a European certificate or “certificat européen”.

The procedure will depend on the country where you divorced, with some countries having signed bilateral or international conventions.

Your lawyer will first need to check certain elements, including that:

• the foreign judge was competent
• the foreign law complies with French law
• the judgement was not obtained fraudulently.

Once these aspects are verified:

• If the country where you divorced is a signatory to the Hague Convention, you must request an official stamp called an “apostille” to authenticate your divorce documents. It is advisable to seek the assistance of a lawyer in the country concerned.
• If the country where you divorced has not signed an agreement with France, you must have your documents authenticated with the help of a lawyer in the country concerned.

You must request a “vérification d’opposabilité” if:

• you divorced in a country outside the European Union
• you divorced in Denmark
• the divorce proceedings were initiated before 1 March 2001 and you divorced in one of these countries: Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, or United Kingdom
• the divorce proceedings were initiated before 1 May 2004 and you divorced in one of these countries: Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, or Slovenia
• the divorce proceedings were initiated before 1 January 2007 and you divorced in Romania or Bulgaria.

In this case, a lawyer in France will need to send a request for recognition of the foreign divorce decision directly to the public prosecutor known as the “procureur de la République”.

The “procureur de la République” will check that your divorce complies with French law, i.e. that it complies with public order referred to as being “conforme à l’ordre public”.

In this case, you will need to send your “vérification d’opposabilité” request to the public prosecutor known as the “procureur de la République” which depends on the administrative body that celebrated and recorded your marriage in France. To find their contact details, search this directory by entering your postcode and selecting the “tribunal judiciaire”. If your marriage ceremony took place abroad, contact the Nantes “tribunal judiciaire”.

The request must include the following documents: 

• a full copy of the divorce decision (original or certified copy)
• official proof of the finality of the decision, such as a certificate of non-appeal, a certificate drawn up by your lawyer or another authority, an act of acquittal, or any other foreign act mentioning the decision
• proof of the nationality of the persons concerned
• a document dated at the moment you make the request that proves your place of residence, known as “justificatif de domicile”, for you and your ex-spouse
• a full copy of your birth and marriage certificates
• translations of all your official foreign-language documents by a sworn translator called a “traducteur assermenté” (see above).

If the public prosecutor known as the “procureur de la République” considers that the foreign decision respects the rules of the French private international laws, it will send a letter directly to the authorities who have your birth and/or marriage certificates so that they can record the divorce note, i.e.:

• the town hall of the town or city where you were born if you were born in France
• the town hall of the town or city where you got married if the wedding ceremony was held in France
• the specialist department of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the “Service Central d’Etat Civil”, located in Nantes, if you have been naturalised in France.

This may take several weeks. You will be informed by the relevant authority once it has recorded the divorce.

If you do not hear anything after two months, you can contact them to find out how your case is progressing.