The PACS: France's Other Way of Being a Couple — Epoche B1
France offers couples a legal status between marriage and simply living together: the pacte civil de solidarité, or PACS, a contract signed at the town hall or before a notary. Created in 1999, it now sits alongside marriage as an ordinary choice rather than an unusual one. Side by side PACS Marriage Income tax Joint return Joint return Next of kin Recognised Recognised Inheriting without a will No automatic share Automatic share Survivor's pension Not available Available Ending it Joint declaration or notice Divorce Where they converge On money and on everyday recognition, the two have grown close. Partners are taxed as one household and treated as next of kin at a hospital desk. A PACS partner also pays no inheritance tax — although, without a will, there may be nothing to inherit. Where they part Pensions remain the clearest divide: the survivor's pension belongs to widows and widowers, not to surviving partners. Adoption was long a second divide, but a reform in 2022 opened joint adoption to unmarried couples, and the gap there has narrowed. Ending the arrangement is the sharpest contrast. A PACS can be dissolved by a joint declaration, or by one partner giving formal notice to the other. No judge, no grounds, no years. The number that surprised the country From a few thousand in its first year, PACS signings climbed decade by decade until, in recent years, the annual total has come close to the number of marriages. Treat exact counts as approximate; the direction is not in doubt. The lesson is not that marriage is fading. It is that a great many couples wanted something the law had never offered — and nobody knew until it was offered. References République française (1999). Loi n° 99-944 du 15 novembre 1999 relative au pacte civil de solidarité. Journal officiel de la République française, 16 November 1999. République française (2022). Loi n° 2022-219 du 21 février 2022 visant à réformer l'adoption. Journal officiel de la République française, 22 February 2022. Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (2024). Bilan démographique 2023. Paris: INSEE Première.