The French Revision of Prescription: A Model for Louisiana?

In 2008, the French Legislature took the necessary step and drastically reformed prescription. The general period is now shorter and unified (five years), there are new grounds for suspension (including codified contra non valentem), and a long-stop period is introduced. Louisiana has yet to make any substantial reform to prescription, and revision is long overdue. This Article will outline the faults in Louisiana and France's original prescriptive regimes and identify the main innovative trends in the French revision. It then will offer a critical appraisal of the French revision, endorse it as a basis for a Louisiana revision, and discuss how Louisiana jurisprudence is uniquely positioned to integrate the revision in French law. We offer the following as a true dialogue from both the French and Louisiana perspectives about the continuing influence of the French Civil Code in Louisiana,the nature of prescription and its placement in a civil code, and the unique opportunity for the Louisiana experience to influence the interpreta-tion of the French revision.