The Systemic Adjustment of the French Civil Code under the Impact of DigitalizationFocusing on the Continuity of the Structures of Contract and Liability

The digitalization of legal transactions is reshaping the conditions under which civil legal relationships are formed and operate, posing continuous challenges to traditional civil law principles such as private autonomy, freedom of contract, and fault-based liability. In this context, the French Civil Code does not exhibit a disruptive institutional transformation; rather, it demonstrates adaptive adjustments within a framework of systemic continuity. As transactional modalities and liability structures become digitalized, contract law seeks to balance efficiency and substantive fairness by reconfiguring the formation of consent, the certainty of contractual content, and the allocation of evidentiary burdens. In the domain of tort law, existing liability structures are maintained while algorithmic and platform-related risks are absorbed through interpretative techniques and adaptations to evidentiary rules. Meanwhile, digitalization-induced disparities in legal capacity have brought new vulnerable groups, such as the “digitally illiterate,” into the purview of private law, granting new institutional significance to principles of good faith and cooperative obligations in the exercise of rights and contract performance. The development of digital identity and trust services further positions evidentiary and liability rules at the forefront of transactional security and personal rights protection. Overall, the French Civil Code’s response to digitalization does not constitute a new normative framework but achieves adjustment through the redeployment of existing legal instruments, reflecting the normative resilience of the civil law system in the face of technological change.