Assault Lawyer in Paris

How does French law grade assault, and what are the penalties?

French criminal law does not judge an assault by the intention alone, but by its result, measured in days of ITT (incapacité totale de travail, total incapacity for work). The same punches thrown in an argument can be a minor matter or a case for the criminal court depending on what the medical certificate says. Where the victim suffered no incapacity, or an incapacity of eight days or less, and no aggravating circumstance applies, the facts do not amount to a délit (the middle tier of French offences) under articles 222-11 to 222-13 of the Penal Code.

The decisive threshold is eight days. Once the ITT exceeds eight days, the assault is the délit of article 222-11 of the Penal Code, punished by three years of imprisonment and a 45,000 euro fine. With one aggravating circumstance, the penalty rises to five years and 75,000 euros; with two, to seven years and 100,000 euros; with three, to ten years and 150,000 euros (article 222-12, as amended by the law of 9 July 2025). These are the penalties in force in 2026. Conversely, an ITT of eight days or less, or none at all, becomes a délit as soon as a single aggravating circumstance is established: three years and 45,000 euros (article 222-13), and, where an ITT of eight days or less was recorded, five years and 75,000 euros with two circumstances and seven years and 100,000 euros with three. At every step of this scale, the classification chosen by the prosecutor decides whether custody is possible, how the case is brought to court and what sentence is at stake. It is the first ground of the defence.

What is ITT, and how is it assessed in Paris?

ITT has nothing to do with the sick leave a family doctor signs. It measures the period during which the victim is significantly hindered in the essential acts of everyday life: washing, dressing, moving around, eating. It therefore applies to children, retired people and visitors on holiday just as much as to employees. The Cour de cassation has held that ITT does not mean the victim is unable to make any physical effort to carry out certain household tasks (Cass. crim. 6 February 2001, appeal no. 00-84.692).

In Paris, the examination usually takes place at the unités médico-judiciaires (forensic medical units) of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, on the investigators' request, and the resulting certificate fixes the ITT on which the prosecutor relies. The firm challenges that figure in both directions. For the accused, nine days of ITT based on complaints that were never objectively observed can be disputed: imaging, successive certificates and the absence of treatment may bring the facts back under the eight-day threshold, with an immediate effect on the penalty incurred. For a victim, an underestimated ITT leads to the wrong classification and weighs on compensation; the firm then completes the medical file and, where needed, asks for an expert report. Joining the case as a partie civile (civil party) to claim damages is explained in French on the page victimes : plainte et partie civile.

Weapon, group, alcohol: which circumstances make assault more serious?

Articles 222-12 and 222-13 list the same aggravating circumstances, numbered from 1° to 15°. Those most often seen in Paris cases are assault by several people acting as perpetrators or accomplices (8°), premeditation or ambush (9°), the use or threat of a weapon (10°), being manifestly drunk or manifestly under the influence of drugs (14°) and deliberately hiding one's face (15°). The status of the victim also counts, for example a child under fifteen, a vulnerable person or a police officer on duty, as does the link with the author: assault by a spouse, cohabiting partner or civil partner (6°), which is covered on the page of the domestic violence lawyer in Paris.

The notion of a weapon is broad. Article 132-75 of the Penal Code treats as a weapon any object that may endanger people once it is used to kill, injure or threaten: a bottle, a broken glass, a chair or a scooter helmet. Using an animal to injure or threaten counts as using a weapon. The consequences are twofold: the facts become a délit even without any injury, and the court must in principle ban the person from holding or carrying a weapon, for up to fifteen years, unless it gives specific reasons based on the circumstances and the person's character (article 222-44). A night out that goes wrong on rue Oberkampf between three friends who have been drinking and a passer-by can combine the group, drunkenness and a weapon by use, and expose each of them to ten years of imprisonment if the ITT exceeds eight days. The lawyer's work is then to strike out, one by one, the circumstances that are not proved against each person.

Can self-defence be accepted under French law?

It is the question almost every client asks after a fight, and the answer is legal before it is moral. Article 122-5 of the Penal Code relieves of criminal liability a person who, faced with an unjustified attack on themselves or someone else, acts at the same time out of the necessity of self-defence, unless the means used are disproportionate to the seriousness of the attack. Three conditions, all required: an unjust attack, an immediate response rather than a delayed revenge, and a proportionate reaction. Someone who chases an attacker who is running away, or who returns ten blows for one, cannot rely on it. To protect property, intentional homicide is excluded and the act must be strictly necessary.

Article 122-6 adds two presumptions: a person is presumed to have acted in self-defence when repelling, at night, an entry by break-in, violence or trickery into an inhabited place, or when defending themselves against the authors of thefts or looting committed with violence. Before the Paris Judicial Court, self-defence is won with evidence, not with assertions. The firm asks without delay for the footage of street, shop or building CCTV cameras, which is kept only for a short time, identifies the witnesses, has its client's own injuries recorded at the forensic unit and rebuilds the timeline minute by minute. When both people have filed complaints against each other, which is common in street fights, that timeline decides who stands trial and who is the victim.

What happens in Paris from police custody to the trial?

An assault that is a délit allows the police to place the suspect in garde à vue (police custody) for twenty-four hours, which the public prosecutor can extend once by twenty-four hours in a written and reasoned decision (article 63 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). The suspect can ask for a lawyer to attend every interview and confrontation, and is then not questioned on the facts without the lawyer unless they expressly waive that right (article 63-4-2), after a confidential interview of up to thirty minutes (article 63-4). This is where the statements that will shape the trial are made, about who struck first and whether an object was used. A person who does not understand French must be informed of their rights through an interpreter and can be assisted by one, and a foreign national can have the consular authorities of their country contacted (articles 63-1 and 63-2). How the firm intervenes at the police station is described on the page of the police custody lawyer in Paris.

At the end of custody, the Paris prosecutor decides how to proceed: a conditional closure (a course, compensation of the victim or mediation, the probationary criminal warning being excluded for assault offences by article 41-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), a summons to appear before the court months later, a guilty plea procedure (CRPC), or a transfer to court. When the ITT exceeds eight days or an aggravating circumstance is retained, a comparution immédiate (immediate trial) is frequent: the prosecutor can bring the accused before the court the same day where the penalty incurred is at least two years of imprisonment, or six months for an offence caught in the act (article 395 of the Code of Criminal Procedure).

For a visitor with no home in France, this is the moment that matters most. At the court at Porte de Clichy, these hearings are held the same day or the next, often late in the evening, and the lawyer reads the file only a few hours before. The lawyer can ask for the case to be postponed to prepare the defence, and the court then rules on judicial supervision or pretrial detention. A postponement is sometimes the right choice, for instance to obtain the CCTV footage or a second medical opinion on the ITT; sometimes a hearing that same evening, well prepared on the person's situation, job and ties abroad, is better than weeks spent waiting in detention. That decision is taken case by case, with the client, and explained in English.

When does assault become a crime?

At the top of the scale, assault causing a mutilation or a permanent disability is punished by ten years of imprisonment and a 150,000 euro fine (article 222-9), and by fifteen years of criminal imprisonment with an aggravating circumstance (article 222-10). The Cour de cassation finds a permanent disability where there is a major and irreversible impairment of a limb or a function (Cass. crim. 24 November 2021, appeal no. 21-85.347). Assault causing death without intent to kill is punished by fifteen years of criminal imprisonment, and twenty years with an aggravating circumstance (articles 222-7 and 222-8).

These crimes go through a judicial investigation led by a juge d'instruction (investigating judge). Adults accused of a crime punished by fifteen or twenty years are tried at first instance by the departmental criminal court, made up of professional judges (article 380-16 of the Code of Criminal Procedure); the others go before the assize court and its jury. In those cases, the line between assault causing death and murder, that is the intent to kill, is the central issue of the defence, and it is built from the very first interviews.

I was assaulted in Paris, or I have been summoned: what should I do now?

If you were injured, see a doctor straight away and keep every certificate, then file a complaint at a police station or by a letter to the public prosecutor (procureur de la République). A victim who does not understand French is entitled to an interpreter and to a translation (article 10-2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). In a first meeting at the firm in the 7th arrondissement, or by video if you have already gone home, Maître Bruguière goes through the facts with you in English, then drafts the complaint in French with the medical evidence attached and follows what the prosecutor decides. If you have been summoned by the police over an assault, do not go to explain yourself alone, and gather the evidence before it disappears.

Time limits work both ways: prosecution is time-barred six years after the facts for assault that is a délit, and twenty years for assault that is a crime (articles 8 and 7 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). A conviction for assault, even a fine, is entered on the French criminal record and can close the door to a public-sector job, a professional licence or naturalisation; the firm argues from the hearing onwards, and later by application, for the conviction to be kept off bulletin no. 2 of the record, a procedure set out in French on the page effacement du casier judiciaire B2. The firm also obtained, for a minor prosecuted for assault with three aggravating circumstances, an educational measure without any placement or imprisonment, as told in the case study on that file. Where threats came before or after the blows, the page of the harassment lawyer in Paris sets out the penalties for threats. The same subject is covered in French on the page avocat violences volontaires à Paris.