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France’s first specific provisions on the treatment of executory contracts in insolvency proceedings were adopted in 1967. Thereafter, French insolvency law was modified in 1985, 1994, 2005, and 2008, with all but the 2005 reform modifying the executory contracts provisions. The goal of such modifications was often to clarify the law, incorporating judicial interpretations into the statutory provisions.

When confronted with the dematerialisation of economic exchanges, jurists first refer to the traditional requirements of contract law, consequently initiating the search for technical means to meet those requirements. In practice, however, it appears that this search also leads to a useful and stimulating updating of the existing law, both in terms of concepts and legal regimes. Apart from those substantive adaptations, further issues and challenges are to be taken into account. First, the political challenges resulting from the contingencies of multilateral negotiations at the international level will concretely favour the design of new norms rather than the revision of old ones. Second, technical challenges will encourage the development of technology-neutral norms that are expected to combine with the highly evolving technical standards. Eventually, economic challenges call for the search for new business models and the progressive selection of the most effective ones.

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