Template:Legifrance

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Use this template when you wish to create an external link to French legal text as provided by Légifrance, the official website of the French government for publication of legislation, regulations, and legal information.

Usage

{{Legifrance|base=database|number=article number|text=Display text for link}}

Note: parameter aliases are provided to make it possible to copy-paste directly from French Wikipedia, so the following is equivalent to the above:

{{Légifrance|base=database|numéro=article number|texte=Display text for link}}

Note on spelling

In French, the name of the website is Légifrance, including the accented "e" letter. To make it easier to use this template with English qwerty keyboards, and in conformity with the majority of English sources that refer to the website without the accented letter, the name of this template is "Legifrance", without the accent. In order to facilitate ease of use by copy-pasting directly from sources on French Wikipedia, the accented version is available as a redirect, and can be used as well.

Parameters

There are five named parameters, two required and three optional. Either base and number, or text and url must be present.

|base= – a token indicating which part of the code, e.g. CP for the penal code, JORF for the Journal officiel, CC for the Civil Code, and so on. Required. See the table below for list of possible values. (See :fr:Modèle:Légifrance § Codes juridiques for an explanation of these values (in French) ).
|number= – article number in the given code base; e.g, 1, 1137. Required. Aliases: 'numéro', 'num'.
|text= – display text; visible text underlying the wikilink to the article at Légifrance. Optional.Default: <base> 'art.' <number>. Alias: 'texte'.
|url= – optional url of the Légifrance article to display. Normally this param should be omitted, as the url value is calculated by the template as a function of base and number. However if required, |url= may be used to override the default value, such as to create a link to a page grouping several related articles; see Example 4 below.
|lang= – optional language code to use to generate the default value for |text=, when only base and number are given, and text is omitted. Values: en or fr; default: en.

Param notes

|base= – see the table in § Legifrance databases, and 'base' values.
|number= – the following adjustments should be used for the value of param 'number':

As a general rule, drop punctuation and embedded spaces in the 'number' param, with some special cases of note:

for legislative acts beginning with L. – drop the punctuation and embedded space: L. 1234 ⟶ L1234.
for regulatory acts beginning with R. – drop the space and punct., i.e., R. 5678 ⟶ R5678
for embedded spaces prior to a suffix, url encode the space; e.g., 4 bis ⟶ 4%20bis
for alphabetic suffix, sometimes you need to add a slash, instead of url-encoded space, e.g., L. 80 A ⟶ L80/A

In footnotes

Two templates are available for generating footnotes related to Légifrance:

{{Cite Legifrance}} – generates a full citation for the Légifrance website (wraps {{cite web}} ); may be used either for inline citations, or in the reference list to anchor a short citation;
{{Sfn Legifrance}} – generates a short citation to a French law or legal text indexed in Légifrance (wraps {{sfn}} ).

Usage notes

Why use this template?

The Légifrance website provides a search interface to the entire body of French law going back to 1529, including every version and every amendment of every bill. The underlying database is comprehensive, but this also means finding a specific law may be difficult; simple keyword search may turn up thousands of similar results. This template, in many cases, will do the work of finding the correct item for you, and create a link to it. Three templates are available: one to create an external link to the law, one to create a full citation to the Légifrance website appropriate for the "References" section, and one to generate a short citation.

If you know how to find the law you are interested in on the Légifrance website and how to create a citation for it using either an inline reference, or a short citation ({{sfn}}), then you don't need this template, although it makes the procedure easier, as it does much of the work for you.

What's the relation between this template and the other Legifrance templates?

{{Legifrance}} – generates an external link (not a citation) to a specific law, calculating the external link based on the 'base' and 'number' params to locate a specific law. It could be used in the External links section, and is used by the other two templates to calculate the external link to the law on the Légifrance website. It could also be used with template {{rp|at=}} to link a specific law, when appended after a general instance of {{Cite legifrance}} that doesn't itself link a particular law.
{{Sfn Legifrance}} wraps template {{sfn}} to generate a short citation. It links the short citation to the full citation lower on the page as defined by the {{cite Legifrance}} template, and also names the externally defined French law, and links to it.
{{Cite Legifrance}} – generates a full citation to the Legifrance website. This may be used in two ways: when used with no parameters and placed in the "References" or "Works cited" section, it fully specifies the Légifrance website and provides an anchor for short citations generated by {{Sfn Legifrance}}; when used this way, it is paired with {{Sfn Legifrance}} and provides automatic linkage for it. Secondly, when used inline with parameters 'base' and 'number', and embedded in <ref>...</ref> tags, it generates a full, inline citation to a specific law, suitable for pairing with named references inline, if desired.

Which one should I use?

This depends on whether your article is new, or exists already and has an existing referencing style, such as inline citations, or short footnotes. If it exists, then follow the existing style: this would call for using {{Cite Legifrance}} if the article already uses inline citations, and {{Sfn Legifrance}} if it already uses short footnotes.

If your article is new and only refers to a French law text once (or the same law several times), you could choose inline style, and then {{Cite Legifrance}} would be the one to use. Place it between ref tags, and include params |base= and |number= with it.

If your article is new and refers to several different French laws, then your best bet may be to use short footnote style. In this case, include template {{Cite Legifrance}} *just once* (with no parameters) in your "Works cited" or "References" section, and then use {{Sfn Legifrance}} throughout the article, whenever you need to cite a particular legal code item.

Abrogated laws

The template does not currently link to abrogated laws. That may be added in forthcoming versions.

Examples

To cite article 62-2 of the CPP (French criminal procedure code) about garde à vue, or the law about dol, you could code:

1a. {{Legifrance|base=CPP|number=62-2|text=CPP Art. 62-2}} → CPP Art. 62-2
1b. {{legifrance|base=CC|number=1137|text=Art. 1137 of the Civil Code}} → Art. 1137 of the Civil Code

You can use the accented "é" version, and param aliases to generate the same link as above, using original French param names, if you've copy/pasted directly from an article on French Wikipedia to generate the same link:

2. {{Légifrance|base=CPP|numéro=62-2|texte=CPP Art. 62-2}} → CPP Art. 62-2

Or, use with only two params, and allow the template to default the value of param |text=:

3a. {{legifrance|base=CC|number=1137}} → Civil code, 1137
3b. {{legifrance|base=CTRANSP|number=L1000-2}} → Transport code, L1000-2
3c. {{legifrance|base=CPEN|number=R622-1}} → Penitentiary code, R622-1

The following demonstrates the use of optional param |url= to supply a link to a group of related articles:

4. {{legifrance|base=CPP|num=75|url=https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/LEGITEXT000006071154/LEGISCTA000006151877/#LEGISCTA000006151877}} → CPP art. 75 – 78

Add the |lang=fr param, if you want the base token to expand in French instead:

5a {{legifrance|base=CGCT|number=LO1114-1}} → General code of Territorial Authorities, LO1114-1
5b {{legifrance|base=CGCT|number=LO1114-1|lang=fr}} → Code général des collectivités territoriales, LO1114-1
5c {{legifrance|base=CPEN|number=L112-1}} → Penitentiary code, L112-1
5d {{legifrance|base=CTRANSP|number=R1112-11|lang=fr}} → Code des transports, R1112-11

Some content not associated with a given code base and having multiple articles can be linked either via |text= and |url= to the main element, or using the indefinite base code "ARTI", direct to a given article, e.g.

6a {{legifrance|base=JORF|number=000000571356|text=1958 Constitution|url=https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/id/JORFTEXT000000571356/}} → 1958 Constitution
6b {{legifrance|base=ARTI|number=000019241062|text=Constitution article 49}} → Constitution article 49

Some error cases: if the value of |base= is not valid, you get this:

7a {{legifrance|base=NOGUD|number=123-4}} → Template:Legifrance: missing or invalid base value ('NOGUD'), or missing number

If the value of |number= is not a real article in the code, for pre-2008 codes (pre-modernization), you get a link that looks legitimate, but clicking it goes to an "Erreur 500" page at Légifrance:

7b {{legifrance|base=CPP|number=9876-54321}} → Criminal procedure code, 9876-54321

For post-2008 codes (e.g., Transport, Penitentiary, etc.), you get a link that also gives an "Erreur 500" if you click, but the error is detected in advance, and the article id is all zeroes (mouse over to see it) (this behavior will change going forward):

7c {{legifrance|base=CPEN|number=L9999-888}} → Penitentiary code, L9999-888

Legifrance databases and 'base' values

This template creates a direct link to a legal text or law. There are numerous different portions of French legal code which can have long names, like the Code général des collectivités territoriales. To avoid having to have such a long name as a template parameter, this template uses a short token, like CGCT, for the 'base' parameter instead of the long name. This base token is shown in all caps in the table below. Choose one of these tokens as the value for the 'base' parameter . Note: these tokens apply only to portions of the Legifrance database that existed in 2008 or earlier.^[a] As a result, the syntax described here cannot be used to create links to portions of the code created since 2008, such as the code de transport.^[b]

To create a link to a legal text or law which is part of one of the post-2008 codes, find the link to the law of interest at Légifrance, and use optional template parameter |url= to specify its value. (Or, just use the url directly, in template {{Cite Legifrance}} or {{Sfn Legifrance}}.)

Table

Law database to search	Detail	'base' value	Example
Journal officiel de la République française Journal officiel	by NOR number (alphabetic + numeric)	JORF	CSCL0508635S JUSX9800048L
	by JORF id number (numeric; often with many zeroes)	JORFID	000000476688 000000671775
Code de l'action sociale et des familles Social action and family code	Legislative part	CACTSOCL
Code de l'aviation civile Civil aviation code	Legislative part	CAVIAL
	decrees by the Conseil d'État	CAVIAR
	Simple decrees part	CAVIAD
Code civil Civil code		CC	9-1 1137
Code de commerce Commercial code		CCOM	L121-4 L420-2
Code de la consommation Consumer code	Legislative part	CONSO
	decrees of the Conseil d'État	CONSO(R)
	Simple decrees part	CONSO(D)
Code de la construction et de l'habitation Construction and housing code	Legislative part	CCONSTRL
	Regulatory part - décrets en Conseil d'État	CCONSTRR
Code de la défense Defense code	Legislative part	CDEF
Code de la défense Defense code	Regulatory part	CDEF(R)
Code de l'éducation Education code	Legislative part	CEDU	L111-1 L312-9-2 D112-1 R633-24
Code de l'éducation Education code	Regulatory part	CEDU(R)
Code de l'entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d'asile Entry, foreign residence, and right of asylum code	Legislative part	CESEDA(L)
	Regulatory part	CESEDA(R)
Code de l'environnement Environment code	Legislative part	CE
Code de l'environnement Environment code	Regulatory part	CE(R)
Code électoral Electoral code	Legislative part	CELE
Code électoral Electoral code	Regulatory part	CELE(R)
Code général des collectivités territoriales General code of Territorial Authorities code	Legislative part	CGCT	LO1114-1
	Regulatory part	CGCT(R)
Code général des impôts General tax code		CGI
Code général de la propriété des personnes publiques General code of public property		CGPPP
Code des juridictions financières Financial jurisdiction code	Legislative part	CJF(L)
	Regulatory part	CJF(R)
Code de justice administrative Administrative justice code	Legislative part	CJA	L113-1 L213-5 D222-33 R222-30
Code de justice administrative Administrative justice code	Regulatory part	CJA(R)
Code monétaire et financier Monetary and financial code	Legislative part	CMONFIL
Code monétaire et financier Monetary and financial code	Regulatory part	CMONFIR
Code de l'organisation judiciaire Judicial Organization code	new Legislative part	COJ	L211-9
	Legislative part	COJ(L)
	Regulatory part	COJ(R)
Code du patrimoine Heritage code		CPAT
Code pénal Penal code	Legislative part	CP	121-3
Code pénal Penal code	Regulatory part	CP(R)
Code pénal (ancien) Penal code of 1810		CP1810
Code pénitentiaire Penitentiary code		CPEN	L3 L112-1 D112-1
Code des postes et des communications électroniques Post and electronic communications code	Legislative part	CPOSTESL
	Regulatory part	CPOSTESR
Code de procédure civile Civil procedure code		NCPC	4 1136-1 1568
Code de procédure civile (ancien) Civil procedure code (old)		CPC
Code de procédure pénale Criminal procedure code	Legislative part	CPP	62-2 75 to 78
	Regulatory part	CPP(R)
	Simple decrees part	CPP(D)
	partie arrêtés	CPP(A)
Code de la propriété intellectuelle Intellectual property code	Legislative part	CPROINTL
	Regulatory part	CPROINTR
Code de la route Highway code	new Legislative part	CRO
	Legislative part	CROUTEL
	new regulatory part	CRO(M)
	Regulatory part	CROUTER
Code rural et de la pêche maritime Rural and maritime fisheries code	Legislative part	CR
	Regulatory part	CR(R)
Code de la santé publique Public health code	new legislative part	CSP
	Legislative part	CSP(L)
	Regulatory part	CSP(R)
	nouvelle Regulatory part	CSP(NR)
Code de la Sécurité sociale Social security code	Legislative part	CSS(L)
	Simple decrees part	CSS(D)
	Regulatory part	CSS(R)
Code du sport Sports code	Legislative part	CSPORTPL
	Regulatory part	CSPORTPR
	partie arrêtés	CSPORTPA
Code du travail Labor code	new legislative part from 1 May 2008	CT(NL)
	Legislative part	CT	L5429-2 D2122-6 R7343-16
	Regulatory part	CT(R)
	Simple decrees part	CT(D)
Code des transports Transport code		CTRANSP	L1000-2 D1112-1 R1112-11
Code de l'urbanisme Urban planning code	Legislative part	URBA(L)
Code de l'urbanisme Urban planning code	Regulatory part	URBA(R)
Code de la voirie routière Roads and highways code	Legislative part	CVOIRIEL
Code de la voirie routière Roads and highways code	Regulatory part	CVOIRIER
Livre des procédures fiscales Tax procedure book	Legislative part	CGLIVP
	Regulatory part	CGLIVPFM
	partie arrêtés	CGLIVPFA

Other codes

The following codes are not yet covered:

Code de la sécurité intérieure (2012)
Code des relations entre le public et l'administration (2016)
Code des procédures civiles d'exécution (2012)
Code de la justice pénale des mineurs (2021)
Code des impositions sur les biens et services (2022)
Code général de la fonction publique (2022)
Code forestier (nouveau) (2012)
Code de l'énergie (2011)
Code de la commande publique (2019)

Notes

^ The rules regarding the permanence of pre-2008 urls were formerly indicated at the following address: Anciennes et nouvelles adresses ('Old and new addresses'; dead link). Currently, the page Etablir-un-lien ('Establish a link') indicates that the permanence of pre-2008 urls is guaranteed for two types of documents: texts published in the Journal officiel having a NOR number on the one hand, and codes or specific articles of codes existing in January 2008 on the other hand (which, apparently, does not include consolidated texts).
^ "Cannot be used to create links to portions of the code created since 2008" – the post-2008 codes are slowly being converted so they can be used with this template, and ctransp is the first one of these to be implemented, and is now available through this template.

General references

The official French legalese definition of arrêté is in section 1.3 of Guide de légistique (3 ed.), La documentation Française, 2017, ISBN 978-2-11-145578-8 See also section 6 (Principales règles typographiques...), p. 695–701 in the pdf for everything you wanted to know about French legal citation numbering and formatting.

The basic layout of most French statutes is described in English at "Codes & Legislation". France: legal resources. Bodleian Libraries – University of Oxford. 2022-07-05.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Legifrance in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Legifrance

No description.

Template parameters[Edit template data]
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
base	`base`	Legislation Database name Suggested values `JORF` `avant90` `CASS` `INCA` `JADE` `CONSTIT` `CACTSOCL` `CAVIAL` `CAVIAR` `CAVIAD` `CC` `CCOM` `CONSO` `CONSO(R)` `CONSO(D)` `CCONSTRL` `CCONSTRR` `CDEF` `CDEF(R)` `CEDU` `CEDU(R)` `CESEDA(L)` `CESEDA(R)` `CE` `CE(R)` `CELE` `CELE(R)` `CGCT` `CGCT(R)` `CGI` `CGPPP` `CJF(L)` `CJF(R)` `CJA` `CJA(R)` `CMONFIL` `CMONFIR` `COJ` `COJ(L)` `COJ(R)` `CPAT` `CP` `CP(R)` `CP1810` `CPOSTESL` `CPOSTESR` `NCPC` `CPC` `CPP` `CPP(R)` `CPP(D)` `CPP(A)` `CPROINTL` `CPROINTR` `CRO` `CROUTEL` `CRO(M)` `CROUTER` `CR` `CR(R)` `CSP` `CSP(L)` `CSP(R)` `CSP(NR)` `CSS(L)` `CSS(D)` `CSS(R)` `CSPORTPL` `CSPORTPR` `CSPORTPA` `CT(NL)` `CT` `CT(R)` `CT(D)` `URBA(L)` `URBA(R)` `CVOIRIEL` `CVOIRIER` `CGLIVP` `CGLIVPFM` `CGLIVPFA` Example JORF	String	suggested
url	`url`	Override url to use to link to the Légifrance article	String	optional
text	`text` `texte`	Display text for the link to the article at Légifrance Example Article 121-3 of the Penal code	String	suggested
number	`number` `num` `numéro`	Article number in the given code base Example 121-3	String	optional
language	`lang`	Language in which the database section should be named when no 'text' param is provided Suggested values `en` `fr`	String	optional

External links

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr – Official Légifrance website
https://op.europa.eu/documents/2748022/2912101/Wed_11_15_MeetSpaceA_MS_FR_Larrede.pdf – Legifrance advanced search how-to slide show

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Legifrance/doc.
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox and testcases pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.

[1] The rules regarding the permanence of pre-2008 urls were formerly indicated at the following address: Anciennes et nouvelles adresses ('Old and new addresses'; dead link). Currently, the page Etablir-un-lien ('Establish a link') indicates that the permanence of pre-2008 urls is guaranteed for two types of documents: texts published in the Journal officiel having a NOR number on the one hand, and codes or specific articles of codes existing in January 2008 on the other hand (which, apparently, does not include consolidated texts).

[2] "Cannot be used to create links to portions of the code created since 2008" – the post-2008 codes are slowly being converted so they can be used with this template, and ctransp is the first one of these to be implemented, and is now available through this template.

[a]

[b]