French Civil Code

Where two persons, one of whom was entitled to succeed the other, perish in the same event, the order of death shall be established by any means. If this order cannot be determined, the succession of each shall devolve without the other being called. However, if one of the co-deceased leaves descendants, the latter may represent their author in the succession of the other where representation is admitted.

The following are unworthy of succession and, as such, excluded from the estate: 1° Anyone who is sentenced, as perpetrator or accomplice, to a criminal penalty for having wilfully caused or attempted to cause the death of the deceased; 2° Anyone who is sentenced, as perpetrator or accomplice, to a criminal penalty for having wilfully struck or committed violence or assault resulting in the death of the deceased without intent…

The following may be declared unworthy to succeed: 1° He who is sentenced, as perpetrator or accomplice, to a correctional penalty for having voluntarily given or attempted to give death to the deceased; 2° He who is sentenced, as perpetrator or accomplice, to a correctional penalty for having voluntarily committed violence leading to the death of the deceased without intention to give it; 2° bis Anyone who has been sentenced,…

The declaration of unworthiness provided for in article 727 is pronounced after the opening of the succession by the judicial court at the request of another heir. The application must be made within six months of the death if the decision of conviction or finding of guilt was made prior to the death, or within six months of that decision if it was made after the death. In the absence…

A successor who is affected by a cause of unworthiness provided for in articles 726 and 727, where the deceased, subsequent to the facts and to his knowledge of them, has specified, by an express declaration of will in testamentary form, that he intends to maintain him in his hereditary rights or has made him a universal or universal bequest.

An heir excluded from the succession on grounds of unworthiness is obliged to return all the fruits and income he has enjoyed since the opening of the succession.

The children of the unworthy are not excluded by the fault of their author, either if they come to the succession in their own right or if they come to it by the effect of representation; but the unworthy cannot, in any case, claim, out of the property of that succession, the enjoyment which the law grants to fathers and mothers out of the property of their children.