The PACS, twenty-five years on
Created in 1999 amid a parliamentary debate of rare violence, it is today entered into mostly by different-sex couples. Something its designers had not foreseen.
A difficult birth
The civil solidarity pact was created by the French Act of 15 November 1999, at the end of a parliamentary passage of more than two years, marked by an initial rejection in the National Assembly in October 1998 and by particularly bitter debates.
The bill initially aimed to give a legal framework to same-sex couples, who had access neither to marriage nor to recognition of cohabitation. The same act also introduced, at article 515-8 of the Civil Code, the first legal definition of cohabitation.
An unforeseen use
The most notable development is that the PACS is today entered into overwhelmingly by different-sex couples, which was not anticipated when it was created. It has settled in as a form of union in its own right, more flexible than marriage and more protective than cohabitation.
Opening marriage to same-sex couples, in 2013, did not make that use disappear. The two forms coexist, which suggests the PACS answers something other than a lack of access to marriage.
What it has gained
The PACS of 1999 is not the one of today. The reform of 23 June 2006, in force from 2007, replaced joint ownership with separation of property as the default regime, and clarified the reciprocal obligations.
The ALUR Act of 2014 opened co-tenancy of the residential lease to partners, on joint request. Since 1 November 2017, registration takes place at the town hall rather than the district court, which has brought the procedure closer to that of marriage.
What still separates it from marriage
Three major differences remain. The PACS creates no inheritance entitlement: without a will, the surviving partner inherits nothing, whatever the length of the shared life. It gives no right to a survivor's pension under retirement schemes. And it produces no presumption of paternity.
Its dissolution is also of another nature. A single partner can end it by having their decision served on the other, without reason or notice, and no compensatory allowance is provided for. This ease of exit is presented as an advantage; it is also exactly the absence of the protection that divorce organises.
What the choice commits you to
Comparing the two statuses on the ceremony alone misses the essential. The useful question bears on what each person wants organised: transmission on death, protection of the one whose career was put on hold, and the consequences of a separation.
On these three points, the PACS leaves it to the parties to provide for themselves, by will and by agreement. That is a real freedom, provided one makes use of it, which presupposes knowing it exists.
Key points
Created in 1999 for same-sex couples, the PACS is today entered into mostly by different-sex couples.
Its regime has changed: separation of property by default since 2007, co-tenancy of the lease on request since 2014, registration at the town hall since 2017.
It creates neither inheritance entitlement, nor survivor's pension, nor presumption of paternity: those protections must be organised by will and by agreement.
This article describes documented mechanisms and disagreements. It recommends no position, no party and no vote, and commits to no reading other than that of the work it cites.
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