Book I: Provisions common to all courts

The bailiff or court clerk shall state in the document how it was dispatched, transmitted or delivered.

The authority responsible for service shall give two copies of the document to the public prosecutor, who shall endorse the original. The public prosecutor shall forward the copies of the document without delay to the Minister of Justice for transmission or to the authority designated under the applicable European regulation or international treaty. He shall attach an order from the judge prescribing transmission of the document where the intervention of…

Unless it has been possible to effect service by post, the authority responsible for service must, on the same day or, at the latest, on the first working day thereafter, send to the addressee, by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt, a certified copy of the document to be served indicating very clearly that it constitutes a simple copy.

The public prosecutor shall inform the requesting authority of the steps taken; he or she shall, where appropriate, forward to the requesting authority any minutes or receipts recording the delivery of the copy of the document, to be appended to the first original. If the service was requested by a bailiff, the bailiff will keep these documents at the court’s disposal.

If it appears from the information transmitted by the requested authority or the postal services that the addressee does not live at the address indicated and that the addressee no longer has a known domicile or residence, the bailiff shall record in the document the information thus provided and shall serve the document as provided for in paragraphs 2 to 4 of l’article 659.

The date of service of a judicial or extrajudicial document abroad is, without prejudice to the provisions of Article 687-1, with regard to the person to whom it is made, the date on which the document is delivered or validly served to him. Where it has not been possible to deliver or serve the document to the addressee, service is deemed to have been effected on the date on which…

The court shall be seised of the claim made by writ by the delivery to it of the document completed with the information provided for in Article 684-1 or, as the case may be, in Article 687-1, where appropriate accompanied by proof of the steps taken to serve it on the addressee. If it is not established that the addressee of a document had knowledge of it in good time,…