Section First: General Provisions

Article 165

Article 165 - A convention is any agreement of wills intended to produce legal effects; when this agreement aims at the creation of obligation-based relationships, it is called a contract.

Article 166

Article 166 - The law of contracts is governed by the principle of contractual freedom: individuals regulate their legal relationships as they see fit, reserving exceptions for the requirements of public order and good morals and taking into account mandatory statutory provisions.

Article 167

Article 167 - Contracts are divided into: 1 - unilateral or synallagmatic contracts; 2 - contracts for consideration or gratuitous contracts; 3 - consensual or solemn contracts; 4 - contracts by option or by subscription; 5 - individual or collective contracts; 6 - acquisition or guarantee contracts; 7 - named or unnamed contracts.

Article 168

Art. 168 - The contract is unilateral if one or several of the parties commit to the other or to the others without reciprocity, such that some are solely creditors and the others solely debtors. The contract is synallagmatic or bilateral when the parties commit to each other reciprocally by virtue of the agreement between them. If only one of the parties is initially obligated and the other is subsequently exposed to assuming certain obligations due to particular circumstances and on the occasion of the execution of the contract, the operation nonetheless retains its unilateral character (deposit, commodatum, pledge).

Article 169

Art. 169 - The contract is onerous when it is arranged in the interest of all parties who derive benefits considered to be substantially equivalent (sale, exchange, lease, employment contract, loan with interest). It is gratuitous if it is arranged in the interest of one of the parties and without the other being able to hope for a substantially equivalent benefit in return for the sacrifice it consents to (donation, commodatum, interest-free loan). The transaction retains its gratuitous character even if the benefited party is bound by certain charges or obligations, even if they are for the benefit of the disponer (donation with charges): the act must be examined as a whole and in light of the spirit in which it was conceived. An onerous contract may be either synallagmatic (sale, exchange) or unilateral (loan with interest). The same applies to the gratuitous contract, which may bind either one of the parties only (ordinary donation) or both parties (donation with charges).

Article 170

Article 170 - Compensatory contracts and aleatory contracts are types of onerous contracts. A compensatory contract is one in which the importance of performances is fixed firmly from the outset, so that each party can, at the time of the agreement, measure the benefits it derives from the operation as well as the sacrifices it makes. An aleatory contract is one in which the importance or existence of one or more performances is subject to an event whose uncertainty prevents such an appraisal (insurance, annuity).

Article 171

Article 171 - Contracts are consensual when their formation is not subject to any particular external condition and the parties' consent can manifest itself in any form, freely. If, on the contrary, the law requires that this consent be expressed through specific procedures, for example, in an authentic act, the contract is solemn. In principle, agreements are formed solely by the free consent of the parties; no solemnity is obligatory except as prescribed by a text of the law.

Article 172

Article 172 - A contract is said to be "à gré à gré" when the conditions are freely discussed, debated, and established by the parties (ordinary sale, lease, exchange, loan). When one of the parties simply gives its assent to a regulatory project that is presented to it pure and simple, without being able to discuss its content in law or in fact, it is said that the contract is formed through adhesion (contract with a railway company, insurance contract).

Article 173

Article 173 - The contract is individual when it requires the unanimous consent of the parties and even if it affects a significant number of human or legal persons. It is collective when imposed by a majority on a minority in such a way that it binds people who did not consent (collective labor contract, concordat in case of bankruptcy).

Article 174

Article 174 - Contracts are acquisition or guarantee contracts depending on whether they aim to introduce a new value into the estates of the parties or one of them, or else maintain their current integrity.

Article 175

Article 175 - Contracts are named or unnamed depending on whether the law applies to them a specific term and configuration. The rules established in the first part of this code are applicable to both named and unnamed contracts. Those that appear in the second part are only applicable to unnamed contracts by analogy, taking into account their affinities with determined named operations.