6. Organization of Justice in France

To understand how the justice system works, you need to know that in France there are 2 orders of justice with different jurisdictions:

• the first, judicial ;

• the second, administrative.

The first deals with private disputes, the second with administrative disputes (i.e. those involving the State, local authorities, EPICs (Établissement Public Industriel et Commercial, such as SNCF, La Poste, etc.), OPHLMs, semi-public companies in which local authorities have a majority stake, etc.).

However, a few clarifications are in order.