The Journal Officiel is the daily official publication of the laws and decrees of the French Republic. It is available in French from two different websites. The full text of the current issue is free on the Journal Officiel website, in HTML; this site also gives a history of the Journal, and some guidance on finding back issues.
Guide to researching French law, by Stéphane Cottin, special envoy of the Secretary General of the French government, and Jérome Rabenou, webmaster for the Constitutional Council. Published on New York University's Globalex website and updated periodically, it refers to both French and English language sources of law on the internet. The authors explain the French legal system, including types of legislation and the court system.
Cyber Avocat is a compilation in French of answers to frequently asked questions about French law. FAQ in French stands for "Foire aux Questions". The site is compiled and maintained by Brigitte Bogucki, a lawyer based in Paris. It does not seek to be exhaustive but to provide general information on French law and legal practice. The most substantial feature of the site is the series of drop-down menus of FAQs on different aspects of French law: the family, courts, housing, employment, and miscellaneous.
The Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature (ENM) is the official training and examining body for judges and prosecutors in France. It comes under the aegis of the French Ministry of Justice. The site publishes the texts of legislation pertaining to the setting up and administration of the Ecole. The list of initial and in-service training programmes is published, with details of the preparation and training cycles for candidates wishing to take one of the Ecole's "concours" (competitions). Bibliographies on some aspects of the judicial system are available.
Section of WorldLII's Countries service covering France. A full range of browse and search features are available on the site. Browse sections highlight links relating to: Courts, Legislation, Parliament and Treaties and International Agreements. Additional subject areas include: Elections, Infrastructure, Intellectual Property and Privacy. A collection of stored searches will automatically search for materials relating to France on all of the WorldLII catalog or databases.
BIJUS is a joint project between the Universities of Saarland in Germany and Nancy in France to promote communication between French and German lawyers. The first part is a bibliography to enable German lawyers to search for books on French law by using terms in German. The reverse is available in French. The second part provides a small selection of full-text key legislation in both French and German. All information is freely available and does not require registration or payment.
The Links ('Liens') page on the website of the French Senate offers links to French legislation, the courts of France and jurisprudence, French local authorities, European law, political parties represented in the Senate, and international institutions. Among the legislation links are the full-text of the Constitution, the Journal Officiel and the consolidated texts of major legislation. The courts links include the Cour de Cassation, le Conseil d'Etat and the Cour des Comptes.
Website of the French Conseil Constitutionnel, a permanent French court created by the Constitution of the 5th Republic on 4th October 1958. The Court has powers to decide on the lawfulness of presidential elections and the conduct of referendums, and can give its opinions when consulted by the French head of state. The site offers details of the Conseil's current business and recent decisions (Actualit?s), and gives a direct link to the Constitution of 1958.
Free database of foreign legislation and cases translated into English, provided by the Institute for Transnational Law at the University of Texas at Austin. Foreign Law Translations makes available translated French, German, Austrian and Israeli cases and French and German legislation in the areas of constitutional, administrative, contract and tort law; most of the content is from France and Germany. The site also has a glossary of French legal terms and a list of German legal abbreviations
