Protection of the surviving spouse in French law

While French inheritance law has recently sought to give everyone more freedom to anticipate the transmission of their estate, it still guarantees to the children a reserved portion in his estate. This guarantees the deceased?s children a minimum share in his/her estate. However, the mechanisms protecting this reserve are subject to legal adjustments when spouses wish to organize the protection of the couple?s survivor, either by submitting to a conventional matrimonial regime or by giving themselves gifts that improve the legal succession of the spouse. This ensures a balance between the protection of the spouse and that of the compulsory heirs. Not seeming to be satisfied, several famous French people living abroad have recently sought to escape French law in order to be able to give their surviving spouses an advantage beyond these limits, at the expense of children of first French marriage. Thus, the protection of the spouse may be both a reason to submit to French law as well as a motivation to try to escape it.