Can you disinherit your children under a foreign law? French forced heirship and the compensatory levy

What exactly does article 913, paragraph 3, provide?

The provision, introduced by article 24 of Law no. 2021-1109 of 24 August 2021, reads (our translation): "Where the deceased or at least one of the deceased's children is, at the time of death, a national of a Member State of the European Union or habitually resident there, and where the foreign law applicable to the succession allows no reserve mechanism protecting children, each child or the child's heirs or successors in title may make a compensatory levy on the existing assets located in France on the day of death, so as to be restored to the reserved rights that French law grants them, within the limit of those rights" (Civil Code, art. 913, version in force since 1 November 2021).

• A link with the European Union. It is enough that the deceased or a single child is, at death, a national of or habitually resident in a Member State. A French child living in Paris meets the condition, even if the parent lived outside Europe.
• A foreign law that does not protect children. The provision does not target the absence of French-style forced heirship but the absence of "any reserve mechanism protecting children". A law that protects children in another way, even less generously, excludes the levy.
• Existing assets located in France on the day of death. Only those assets can be levied. Lifetime gifts count towards the calculation of the reserved portion but cannot themselves be levied.
• The calculation. The provision refers to the "reserved rights that French law grants them" without specifying the method, and no court decision has yet settled it. On our reading, the base is formed as in domestic law: assets existing at death, net of debts, with lifetime gifts notionally added back according to their condition at the time of the gift and their value when the estate opens (Civil Code, art. 922). Children are counted under article 913, paragraph 2: a child who renounces the estate counts only if represented or bound to bring a gift into account. Gifts and legacies chargeable to the child's reserved share are deducted: under domestic law, a gift received as an advance on inheritance by a child who accepts the estate, unless the deed provides otherwise, whereas a gift made outside the share is charged to the disposable portion (art. 919-1 and 919-2). Also taking into account what the child takes under the foreign law follows, on our reading, from the word "restored"; no court has ruled on it. The levy covers the difference, without exceeding the value of the assets located in France.
• Estates concerned. The provision came into force on the first day of the third month following publication of the law, that is on 1 November 2021, and applies "to estates opened from its entry into force, including where the deceased made gifts before that entry into force" (Law no. 2021-1109, art. 24, II).
• The notary's duty to inform. The same law supplemented article 921: where the notary finds that an heir's reserved rights are liable to be infringed by the deceased's gifts and legacies, the notary informs each heir concerned and known, individually and, where appropriate, before any partition, of the right to seek reduction of the gifts and legacies exceeding the disposable portion (Civil Code, art. 921, para. 3). The French authorities told the European Commission that, on that basis, the notary in charge of an estate must inform the heirs of their right to the levy.

The European Commission procedure is closed. Following a multiple complaint (reference CPLT(2022)03325) alleging that the provision infringes Regulation No 650/2012, the Commission opened a dialogue with France. By letter of 13 October 2025, the French authorities explained that Parliament had precisely in mind mechanisms different from forced heirship, such as English family provision, which they regard as a "functional equivalent", and that the levy should not apply where English law governs. The Commission published those explanations and found that the legal uncertainty had been resolved (pre-closure letter of 4 June 2026), then closed the complaint on 28 July 2026, after their publication by the French Directorate of Civil Affairs and the Seal. Those explanations do not bind the courts, but they set out the interpretation the French Ministry of Justice circulates to notaries (Commission notice).

Estimate the reserved share and the possible levy

Enter the amounts of the estate. The calculator works out a child's theoretical reserved share under article 913, paragraph 1, then the levy capped at the assets located in France under paragraph 3. It is an estimate: it replaces neither the notary's settlement of the estate nor an analysis of the foreign law.

Does the levy apply against English, American or Swiss law?

Everything depends on the law governing the estate and on what it offers children.

• England and Wales. There is no forced heirship, but the 1975 Act allows a child of any age to apply to the court for "reasonable financial provision" out of the estate, assessed by reference to the child's maintenance, where the deceased died domiciled in England and Wales (Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, s. 1). The application must in principle be made within six months of the date on which representation is first taken out (s. 4). The French authorities regard this as a protective mechanism that excludes the levy. One situation still needs analysis: that of a British national domiciled outside England and Wales who chooses English law under the Regulation, since the 1975 Act requires the deceased to have died domiciled in England and Wales; no court has said whether the French position still holds where the child cannot use that remedy.
• United States. Succession law is a matter for each State. The laws of most States leave parents free to leave nothing to their children; Louisiana is the exception, where forced heirs are in principle first-degree descendants aged twenty-three or under or permanently incapable, subject to representation (Louisiana Civil Code, art. 1493), and a 2026 statute sets at one dollar the forced portion of certain adult, permanently incapable forced heirs whose direct or beneficial net worth exceeds fifty million dollars (La. R.S. 9:2374). In the 2017 cases, the lower courts had noted that Californian law only allows the court to grant a family allowance to adult children who were dependent on the deceased. Whether such an allowance is enough to exclude the levy has not been decided. A revocable trust raises a further difficulty: the levy bears on the deceased's "existing assets" at death, and the treatment of French assets already transferred to the trust remains to be decided.
• Switzerland. Swiss law has forced heirship, in the form resulting from the reform in force since 1 January 2023: descendants' reserved share is half of their statutory share (Swiss Civil Code, art. 471), protected by an action for abatement (art. 522). For the Swiss courts, the estate of a person domiciled in Switzerland is governed by Swiss law (Swiss Private International Law Act, art. 90). Where Swiss law governs the estate, it therefore provides a reserve mechanism protecting children, and the levy should not apply, even though the Swiss reserved share is smaller than the French one.

What have the Cour de cassation and the European Court of Human Rights decided?

To our knowledge, as at 5 November 2026, no published decision of the Cour de cassation has yet applied article 913, paragraph 3. The decisions that matter concern the earlier regime.

• A law without forced heirship is not contrary to public policy. A French composer settled in California for almost thirty years had left all his assets to a trust for the benefit of his wife, leaving nothing to his children from earlier relationships. The Court holds that a foreign law that ignores forced heirship "is not in itself contrary to French international public policy" and may be set aside only if its concrete application leads to a situation incompatible with the essential principles of French law; none of the children was in a situation of economic hardship or need, and the situation was closely connected with California (Cass. 1re civ., 27 September 2017, no. 16-13.151, published).
• No vested right to the old levy. On the same day, in another Californian estate, the Court held that article 2 of the 1819 law, struck down by the Conseil constitutionnel, could no longer be applied in pending proceedings in the absence of any right recognised before the decision was published, and upheld Californian law (Cass. 1re civ., 27 September 2017, no. 16-17.198, published).
• French real estate before 2015. For an estate subject to the former conflict-of-laws rules, real estate located in France followed French law: the reserved portion, a matter of "domestic public policy", could not be set aside by a will made under the law of the domicile, notwithstanding the enforcement order (exequatur) granted to the foreign judgment approving it (Cass. 1re civ., 4 July 2018, nos. 17-16.515 and 17-16.522, published).
• No fundamental right to inherit. On the application of the children in the second case, the European Court accepts that they had a protected legitimate expectation, but holds that the immediate application of the repeal did not upset the fair balance; it recalls that it has never recognised a general and unconditional right of children to inherit part of their parents' property (ECtHR, 15 February 2024, Jarre v. France, no. 14157/18).