What not to say during an interrogation in France
A statement you make before your lawyer arrives can carry significant evidential weight, and in France it is written into the procès-verbal, the official record that follows the case to trial. Knowing what not to say during an interrogation therefore matters from the first question.
What should you avoid saying during police questioning?
Most of the damage in an interrogation is not done by a confession. It comes from smaller things: a guessed date, a detail added to fill a pause, or an officer's summary accepted without reading it. Each of these goes into the file. Later, at a hearing, you may have to explain why your account changed.
False accounts and uncertain memories
A false alibi, a fabricated document or an explanation you know to be untrue is a serious mistake in a police interrogation. Once lying has been shown, it can undermine your credibility. It can also lead to further legal difficulties of its own.
The quieter risk is a gap in memory filled with a guess. If you do not know or do not remember a detail, the accurate answer is to say so. In practice, it helps to keep three kinds of information separate:
What you remember yourself: events you saw, heard or did, stated as such.
What others told you: information passed on by someone else, attributed to that person.
What you have inferred: your own deductions, presented as deductions and not as facts.
Approximate figures: an uncertain time, distance or sequence stays approximate and is never turned into a firm answer.
In rape and sexual-assault cases, these distinctions carry particular weight. As part of our defence against sexual assault charges, Gparastatis-avocat compares the alleged chronology with the objective evidence in the file. A discrepancy in time, place or context can significantly change how the facts are assessed.
Rushed explanations and unnecessary details
Hours in an interview room build pressure to say something, anything, just to make it end. An impulsive explanation given before legal advice still becomes part of the evidential record. Being innocent does not protect an unconsidered answer, which can be misunderstood or read as an admission.
Filling silences: background and explanations offered unprompted give the investigator material they did not ask for.
Explaining to end the session: what you say to bring questioning to a close is weighed in the same way as everything else.
Answering before understanding your rights: the decision to give an account belongs after that step, and after speaking to a lawyer where appropriate.
Gparastatis-avocat advises against making any statement without a defence strategy agreed in advance, because its consequences for the proceedings can last. The point that matters is timing: the account you give in the first hours is the one later accounts will be tested against.
Unclear admissions and improper conduct
If a police officer reads back a summary in words you would not have used, do not accept it to keep things moving. Ask for the question to be clarified, or translated, before you agree to anything. A friendly, informal conversation can still carry legal weight. Ask plainly whether you are being questioned as a suspect or as a witness.
Silence and obstruction are different things. You may decline to answer and still comply with lawful directions. If you object, do it calmly and never resist physically. Hiding evidence or agreeing on a shared story with others falls outside any right and creates new legal problems.
When may you remain silent in France?
French law gives a suspect the choice of whether to speak, but how that choice works depends on your status in the room. The same question carries different consequences in a voluntary interview than in garde à vue. That is why your status is the first thing to establish.
Identify your interview status
An audition libre is a voluntary suspect interview without detention, and you may leave at any time. Being invited to come in rather than arrested does not mean the police have no suspicions. Garde à vue (police custody) is a detention measure: you cannot leave unless you are released or your legal status changes.
Before an audition libre begins, investigators must tell you the following, in a language you understand:
The offence: its legal classification and its presumed date and place.
Your freedom to leave: you may leave the premises at any moment.
Your choice to speak: you may make statements, answer questions or say nothing.
Assistance: where applicable, your right to an interpreter and to a lawyer.
A calm tone or an ordinary office does not tell you which regime applies. Ask directly whether this is custody or a voluntary interview, and whether you are free to leave. The answer determines which rights you can invoke.
State your choice to remain silent
Under Articles 61-1 and 63-1 of the French Code of Criminal Procedure, a suspect in a qualifying voluntary interview or in custody may make a statement, answer police questions or remain silent. In custody you must still give your identity. The right to silence is the French protection against self-incrimination, and it does not extend to giving false identity details.
A short sentence works best: you wish to remain silent and to consult a lawyer. You can ask for it to be entered in the record. "No comment" has no special status in France, and neither the rules of England and Wales nor the American Miranda warning apply. Silence is not a guarantee of release, and you may decide with your lawyer to answer some, all or none of the questions.
Recognise a change to police custody
A voluntary interview can become custody if the legal conditions are met. If an officer tells you that you may no longer leave, ask whether you have been placed in garde à vue and ask to be told your custody rights. Custodial interrogation brings its own time limits, set out below.
Regime | Maximum duration |
Ordinary initial period | 24 hours |
Ordinary authorised extension (generally offences punishable by at least 1 year's imprisonment) | 48 hours |
Certain serious offences | 72 hours |
Specified organised-crime or drug-trafficking offences | 96 hours |
Drugs concealed in the body (exceptional cases) | 120 hours |
Certain terrorism investigations | 144 hours |
The 24 hours run from the moment you are actually deprived of liberty, which can be before you reach the police station. The longer periods are exceptional maximums tied to specific offences, and law enforcement cannot apply them as interchangeable extensions. The duration and rights of garde à vue therefore depend on the offence under investigation.
How can you obtain a lawyer from the start?
The first hours of a criminal case are decisive, and the interrogation process often begins before anyone has thought to call a lawyer. When and how you make the request determines what assistance you can actually receive.
Request assistance before substantive questioning
In custody, you can request a lawyer at the start or at any later point. You can name one, or ask for a court-appointed lawyer (avocat commis d'office) through the head of the local bar. A court appointment and state-funded legal aid are separate matters. In a voluntary interview about an imprisonable offence, you may also request an attorney, and you can refuse questioning without that lawyer present and leave.
Under Article 63-3-1, police must promptly contact the head of the bar about a replacement if your chosen lawyer cannot be reached, cannot attend within 2 hours of notification, or does not arrive in that time. This is a replacement rule under Article 63-3-1, not a guaranteed arrival time. For this reason Cabinet Georges Parastatis provides 24/7 emergency assistance through its criminal defence practice in Paris, covering custody, questioning, arrests and summonses.
Use the lawyer's assistance during custody
Under Article 63-4, your custody lawyer may meet you confidentially before questioning, normally for up to 30 minutes. If custody is extended, you may ask for another consultation. Use that time to agree what you will and will not say, and whether you will give police information at all.
If you ask, the lawyer may attend interviews and confrontations, take notes, submit written observations and put questions at the end of an interview, within the limits set by law. A criminal defence attorney's presence also makes it possible to check what is being recorded as it happens.
The lawyer may consult the custody record and rights notification, any medical certificate and the records of your own interviews, but not the whole investigation file. The defence therefore works from a partial picture at this stage, which is one more reason to be careful with your words.
Respond if attendance is delayed
Asking for a lawyer does not automatically suspend every investigative step. Say clearly that you do not agree to continue without the assistance you requested, and ask for this to be recorded. Under Article 63-4-2, questioning before the lawyer arrives may require authorisation. A prosecutor may defer attendance for up to 12 hours. For qualifying serious offences, a liberty and detention judge may extend the delay to the 24th hour.
What should you check before signing the interview record?
Statements made during police questioning reach the court as written text, not as your voice. A voluntary interview is not generally audiovisually recorded. The audiovisual recording rules in Article 64-1 cover custody interviews for the most serious offences (crimes), not every interview. For most cases, the written record is the version that counts.
Read and correct the procès-verbal
The procès-verbal can be used later in the proceedings. Read it carefully before signing, or have it read and interpreted to you. Point to each error precisely and ask for it to be corrected:
Hardened answers: an "I think" or "around" that has become a definite statement.
Omissions and mistranslations: a qualification left out, or a word rendered with a different meaning.
Wrong times or facts: incorrect hours, places or sequences.
In a voluntary interview, you may refuse to sign a record that does not reflect what you said, and the investigator will note your refusal. The record stays in the file and the investigation continues. If an error remains, ask for your objection to be recorded and tell your defence lawyer.
Raise language or communication difficulties
Getting by in everyday French is not the same as following legally significant questions accurately. If you are a foreign national, request an interpreter. Language barriers matter most at the moment your rights are most critical. If you object to the absence or quality of interpretation, say so immediately so it goes into the interview report, or have observations added to the file later. A bilingual lawyer in France can check the interpreter's accuracy as the interview proceeds.
Medication, disability, hearing impairment, distress or exhaustion can also prevent accurate communication. Ask for appropriate assistance or a medical examination. Under Article 63-3, steps to arrange an examination requested in custody must normally be taken within 3 hours, unless an insurmountable circumstance prevents it.
Document breaches of your rights
If your custody rights were not explained promptly, ask for the omission and its timing to be recorded, and tell your lawyer. Article 63-5 requires custody to respect human dignity. If conditions are degrading or unsafe, ask for medical attention, inform your lawyer and request that the conditions be documented.
An ignored request for a lawyer or an unauthorised extension may support a procedural challenge, but it does not automatically end the case. Gparastatis-avocat examines the custody timeline and records for grounds of nullity. Before the tribunal correctionnel, these objections must generally be raised before any defence on the merits, subject to legal exceptions. That order decides whether the objection can be heard at all.
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