Campaigners against France’s 2021 inheritance law on forced heirship are anxiously awaiting an update on their case from the European Ombudsman.
The European Commission has replied to the ombudsman on the subject of why a decision is taking so long - but the content of this reply has not been made public.
It comes as hundreds of readers have joined the campaign. A considerable number of these have spoken of plans to sell up and leave France due to the uncertainty.
Ronnie Bennett and Trish Miller, heading a group of affected readers, were previously told that a fuller explanation of the reason for a delay in a decision over their complaints had been requested by November 25 – Monday this week – but the date passed without news.
The European Ombudsman service, to whom they had applied for help, has told The Connexion that a reply from the commission was received by it yesterday morning. It said the reply has now been assigned to a case worker who has “started to analyse it”.
A spokeswoman said: “We will then decide on our next steps in this case.”
She added: “It is difficult to be precise about the timing but we will do our best to handle it as fast as possible.”
In its original email to the campaigners the ombudsman referred to having asked the commission for a reply by November 25, but it did not explicitly say it would pass it on the same day.
The campaigners contacted the ombudsman in dismay at the commission’s alleged failure to “reply properly” to emails they sent in August and September. They were requesting news of its decision on their grouped complaint against France over its 2021 law.
Ronnie Bennett
The law seeks to enforce French inheritance law ‘reserved portions’ for children in cases where foreign people have used EU law rights to write wills choosing the inheritance law of their nationality to govern their estate. This is commonly done to protect the surviving spouse of a couple and often where there are second or more marriages and step-children.
The original aim of the law was reported to be to protect daughters under Sharia law - although this was said by senators at the time of passing to be ineffective and harmful to ‘Anglo-Saxons’ in particular.
The campaigners felt that a response given in October, which asked them to “rest assured” that the case was being dealt with, lacked detail.
The commission also said in its response that “the decision on the next steps that [we] will take further to the response received from the French authorities needs to be considered and agreed by a number of commission services, taking into account legal and policy factors”.
The ombudsman has powers to investigate complaints about poor administration by EU bodies and states on its website that when it looks into matters there are several possible avenues.
Some issues, it says, are resolved swiftly, in others it may formally decide that there has been ‘maladministration’ and make recommendations to address this, which is a longer process.We do not know if this is under consideration in this case.
Timeline of events
Summer 2021: France passed the new French law December 2021: Commission tells The Connexion it is ‘aware’ of the law December 2022: Ms Miller lodged the first complaint against the law with the European Commission February 15, 2023: The commission published an acknowledgement of receiving multiple complaints on the issue. Its website says it typically aims to reach a decision on whether an infringement of EU law has occurred within a year of a complaint being made. February 29, 2024: The commission publishes an update saying it had written to the French government and received a response, which it was considering. This was the last public update. July 2024: Ronnie Bennett launches campaign to press for a swift decision Summer 2024: Campaigners ask commission for news and receive a reply they consider to lack detail October 2024: Campaigners apply to the European Ombudsman November 26, 2024: Ombudsman confirms having received reply from the commission to its request for a fuller explanation
Many French lawyers believe the 2021 law is contrary to an EU inheritance regulation known as Brussels IV, which has provided the ‘choice of law’ option since 2015.
