On the first ground of the application for review, all three limbs:

Given that M. X. sought from the judge in chambers an order for the seizure of a number of the magazine Le Crapouillot which had stated when and where he was born, under what name, the date of his marriage, the names of his friends, his address, his original religion and even, without his consent, a photograph of himself;
Given that the decision below (Paris, 12 November 1985) which upheld the order of the judge in chambers is criticised by M. Goudeau, editor of the magazine, and its publisher, the Société d’éditions parisiennes associées (SEPA), on the ground that it ordered them, on pain of penalties, to recall copies of the magazine offered for sale and to halt the delivery of those en route while at the same time stating that there had been no invasion of the “intimacy” of the claimant’s private life, it had misapplied article 9 Code civil under which a judge – and, in an urgent case, the judge in chambers -- may only make an order other than for the payment of damages if it clearly finds that there has been such an invasion; and secondly and thirdly, that in ordering what amounted to an unjustified seizure the Court of Appeal had acted inconsistently and had violated articles 61 ff. of the Law of 29 July 1881;

But given that the order upheld by the Court of Appeal actually dismissed the claim for seizure on the very ground that the revelations in the magazine did not affect the intimacy of the private life of the claimant as required by the second part of article 9 Code civil, but held that they nevertheless constituted “a wrongful and deliberate intrusion into a person’s life” contrary to the more general prescription of article 9 Code civil which provides that “every one is entitled to respect for his private life”, and the judge in chambers, in reliance on article 809 of the new Code of Civil Procedure, merely ordered the payment of a sum of money “by way of provisional damages” and astreinte “unless the situation were spontaneously and voluntarily put right by the recall of copies offered for sale and the stoppage of copies en route”; that therefore the application cannot be accepted in any of its three limbs.

On the second and third grounds, all limbs taken together:

Given that after this order had tasked a court official to make investigations into the truth of the allegations with a view to ascertaining what remedial measures were appropriate and how much damage had been suffered, further allegations were made by M. X., to the effect that a new edition of the very number of Le Crapouillot which had supposedly been “censored” had reiterated these invasions into his private life, this time in concert with a number of the journal Minute, and so two further orders were issued and upheld by the judgment under attack, holding that the tasks of the court official mentioned, which had been laid down in detail, applied to all publications subsequent to the notification of the first order; and given that all the appeals were connected the Court of Appeal heard them together and confirmed the figure provisionally put on the astreinte by the tribunal de grande instance;

Given that the complainants maintain, first of all, that there was no legal basis for the judgment of the Court of Appeal since there was no finding that the new number of Le Crapouillot or that of Minute satisfied the requirements for the application of article 9 Code civil; secondly that while it was true that M. Goudeau was the editor and SEPA the publisher of Minute as well as of Le Crapouillot, it was only in the latter capacity that they were subject to the original order, so that the judgment which upheld the later two orders was executing the first order against persons in a capacity in which they were not bound by it, contrary to article 1351 Code civil; and furthermore, according to the third ground, it violated article 1382 of the same Code by fixing the amount of the astreinte and ordering M. Goudeau and SEPA to pay M. X. 37,400 francs without specifying its reasons for holding that the measures ordered by the judge in chambers – which the judges below had held to have been executed – had been executed only in part;

But given that in fixing the amount of the astreinte the judgment under attack took account only of the damage covered by the original order, explicitly disregarding the new version and the comparable issue of Minute, which, as held at first instance, did not contain the photograph or any of the other details which invaded the claimant’s privacy; and that finally, in fixing at one symbolic franc, as the judges below had done, the amount of the astreinte relating exclusively to the first edition of Le Crapouillot the Court of Appeal legally justified its decision against the complainants in stating, contrary to what had been held by the tribunal below, “that, although the order was issued on a Saturday , M. Goudeau and SEPA did not diligently do all that they could have done by way of preventing the sale of a larger number of copies”.

From which it follows that the first two complaints are irrelevant and the third is unfounded;

For these reasons DISMISSES the application for review.

Civ 1, 13/04/1988 : In the absence of a violation of the intimacy of the claimant's private life, there is no ground for ordering seizure, on the basis of article 9 para 2 of the Code civil, of the magazines complained of, but this is no obstacle to an interim injunction by a judge in chambers. This order could consist in the case in question of an obligation for the editor to ensure return of copies offered for sale and retention of copies on the point of being sent. This injunction was issued on the basis, this time, of article 809 of the new Civil Procedure Code, since the judge considered that the revelations contained in the magazine, although not justifying seizure of the magazines in the absence of violation of the intimacy of private life nevertheless constitute a "wrongful and deliberate intrusion into the life" of this person. Since then, it is the financial constraint which becomes a guarantee for the protection of private life. In support of this case law it is possible to cite a judgment of the 4 October 1989 (Civ 1, Bull no 307: "the measures provided for by article 9 para 2 of the Code civil can only be ordered in chambers in the case of an intrusion into private life which undermines its intimacy") as well as a judgment of the 12 December 2000 (Civ 1 Bull no 321) specifying that "Only a finding of violation by a publication of private life and of the right which everyone has to oppose the publication of his image denotes the urgency and opens up the right to reparation", the form of which "is left to the free determination of the judge who has, under article 809 para 2 of the new Civil Procedure Code as well as under article 9 para 2 of the Code civil, the power to take, if necessary in chambers, all measures appropriate to prevent the violation or bring it to an end, as well as to compensate for the detriment which results from it..."

Translation by Raymond Youngs

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