A creditor with a debtor in France who senses that money or goods are about to move needs interim relief and asset preservation in France before the underlying claim is even filed. This page sets out how that protection actually works, what a French court expects to see, and where the exercise is not worth the cost.
The starting point is almost always a protective attachment, known locally as a saisie conservatoire, sought without notice to the debtor. The creditor's lawyer applies to the enforcement judge, or in urgent commercial matters to the presiding judge sitting in référé, for an order authorising the measure before the debtor can react. The application is built on the underlying contract, the invoice trail and a clear account of the risk that the debtor will move funds or goods once alerted.
Once the order is granted, a bailiff serves it and locks the target asset – a bank account, a stock of goods, a receivable owed to the debtor by a third party. The debtor is then notified and has the right to challenge the measure before the same judge. If the challenge fails, or none is raised, the creditor still has to bring or continue the main proceedings on the merits within a period set by the order, because the attachment on its own does not settle the debt. Anyone weighing interim relief and asset preservation in another jurisdiction will recognise the same sequence: freeze first, litigate the merits second, convert the freeze into payment last.
A French judge looks for two things before granting or maintaining an attachment: a claim that appears well founded in principle, and a genuine risk that recovery will be compromised without the measure. The first turns on paper – the signed contract, the purchase order, the delivery documents, the unpaid invoice and any written acknowledgement of the debt. The second turns on conduct – a debtor closing accounts, transferring a business, or simply going silent after years of regular payment.
Weak documentation is the most common reason an attachment is later lifted on the debtor's challenge. A creditor who cannot produce the contract, or whose invoice does not match the delivery record, gives the debtor an easy line of attack. We test the file against exactly this standard before recommending the step, not after the application has been filed.
Establishing where a debtor's assets sit is part of the same exercise, and in France that work is licensed. We build the asset picture from public registers, official filings and licensed commercial databases, not from any activity that requires a private licence to conduct. Where a fact needed for the application sits outside those sources, we say so and work with what is verifiable rather than presenting an assumption as evidence.
SOLUTIO assesses the claim, structures the file and instructs. The application itself, the hearing before the enforcement judge or the référé judge, and the service of the order are handled by admitted lawyers and licensed providers in the jurisdiction concerned, because only a French-qualified lawyer can appear before a French court. Our part is to decide, with the client, whether the measure is worth applying for at all, to prepare the evidence in the form the French court expects, and to keep the client's decision-making in plain terms throughout. The fee basis for this coordination is agreed with the client before instruction; no figure is fixed in advance of that conversation. A related risk worth checking at the same time is what other creditors of the same debtor are doing, covered on our page on recovering debt in France.
Where any of these applies, we say so before the client spends on an application that a French judge is unlikely to sustain.
An urgent application without notice to the debtor can move quickly once the file is complete, because the point of the procedure is to act before the debtor is alerted. The pace depends on the completeness of the evidence and on the court's calendar, which we check before advising a timeline.
No. A protective attachment is designed to run ahead of a judgment, provided the claim appears well founded and there is a genuine risk to recovery. The creditor still has to pursue the underlying claim afterwards to convert the freeze into payment.
An order granted without notice loses its point if the debtor learns of it in advance and moves first. This is why the application is filed without alerting the debtor and why the asset picture needs to be built and verified before, not during, the application.
An exporter or contractor watching a French counterparty stall knows the real risk is not the debt itself but choosing the wrong procedural route before the file has been properly assessed – an application filed on weak evidence, or a freeze sought where no asset exists to catch. Getting that assessment right, before money moves, is the difference between a measure that holds and one a debtor unpicks in a week.