Generates a standard citation for Légifrance, the official website of the French government for the publication of laws and legislation; either with a link to a specific legal text, or just a full citation to the site, suitable for linkage from short citations. Automatically linked to by {{sfn Legifrance}}.

Usage edit

{{Cite Legifrance}} – a full citation in the References section, addressable by short citations (see {{Sfn Legifrance}})

<ref name="CP 121-3">{{Cite Legifrance|base=CP|number=121-3}}</ref> – a full, inline citation to a specific law

<ref name="Legifrance">{{Cite Legifrance}}</ref>{{rp|at={{Legifrance|base=CP|number=121-3}}}} – a general, reusable, named ref inline, with {{rp}} to specify which law

Parameters edit

All parameters are optional. Recommendation: When used as an inline citation to link a particular law, use only |base= and |number= (and sometimes |text= and |url= as needed) and omit the rest. When used as a full citation to the Legifrance site in the Reference list of an article as a base for short citations to connect to, use no parameters.

  • |base= – a token indicating which part of the code, e.g. CP for the penal code, JORF for the Journal officiel, CC for the Civil Code, and so on. Optional. See § TemplateData for list of possible values.
  • |number= – article number in the given code base; e.g, 1, 121-3. Optional, but required if |base= is present.
  • |text= – display text underlying the wikilink to the article at Légifrance. Optional. If param |base= or |number= is absent, then this param is ignored. If both are present and |text= is omitted, then it defaults to the expanded value of 'base', plus the value of 'number'.
  • |url= – optional link to a particular Légifrance article. Normally this param should be omitted as the template calculates it based on 'base' and 'number'. If used, it should be only when both |base= and |number= are present, as the link url is calculated by the template as a function of base and number. However if required, the param may be used to override the default value, such as to create a link to a page grouping several related articles.

Remaining parameters wrap {{cite web}} parameters of the same name; see its doc page for details. These should normally be omitted:

  • |author=
  • |date=
  • |title=
  • |trans-title=
  • |publisher=
  • |ref=
  • |at=.

Param notes edit

The following explains how to choose the value of the |number= parameter: As a general rule, drop punctuation and embedded spaces in the 'number' param, with some special cases of note:

  • for legislative acts beginning with L.  – drop the punctuation and embedded space: L. 1234L1234.
  • for regulatory acts beginning with R.  – drop the space and punct., i.e., R. 5678R5678
  • for embedded spaces prior to a suffix, url encode the space; e.g., 4 bis4%20bis
  • for alphabetic suffix, sometimes you need to add a slash, instead of url-encoded space, e.g., L. 80 AL80/A

The following explains how to choose the value of the |base= parameter: This template creates a direct link to a legal text or law. There are numerous different portions of French legal code which can have long names, like the Code général des collectivités territoriales. To avoid having to have such a long name as a template parameter, this template uses a short token, like CGCT, for the 'base' parameter instead of the long name. This base token is shown in all caps in the table below. Choose one of these tokens as the value for the 'base' parameter . Note: these tokens apply only to portions of the Legifrance database that existed in 2008 or earlier.[a] As a result, the syntax described here cannot be used to create links to portions of the code created since 2008, such as the code de transport.[b]

To create a link to a legal text or law which is part of one of the post-2008 codes, find the link to the law of interest at Légifrance, and use optional template parameter |url= to specify its value. (Or, just use the url directly, in template {{Cite Legifrance}} or {{Sfn Legifrance}}.)

Table edit

Other codes edit

The following codes are not yet covered:

Notes

  1. ^ The rules regarding the permanence of pre-2008 urls were formerly indicated at the following address: Anciennes et nouvelles adresses ('Old and new addresses'; dead link). Currently, the page Etablir-un-lien ('Establish a link') indicates that the permanence of pre-2008 urls is guaranteed for two types of documents: texts published in the Journal officiel having a NOR number on the one hand, and codes or specific articles of codes existing in January 2008 on the other hand (which, apparently, does not include consolidated texts).
  2. ^ "Cannot be used to create links to portions of the code created since 2008" – the post-2008 codes are slowly being converted so they can be used with this template, and ctransp is the first one of these to be implemented, and is now available through this template.

Usage notes edit

Why use this template?

The Légifrance website provides a search interface to the entire body of French law going back to 1529, including every version and every amendment of every bill. The underlying database is comprehensive, but this also means finding a specific law may be difficult; simple keyword search may turn up thousands of similar results. This template, in many cases, will do the work of finding the correct item for you, and create a link to it. Three templates are available: one to create an external link to the law, one to create a full citation to the Légifrance website appropriate for the "References" section, and one to generate a short citation.

If you know how to find the law you are interested in on the Légifrance website and how to create a citation for it using either an inline reference, or a short citation ({{sfn}}), then you don't need this template, although it makes the procedure easier, as it does much of the work for you.

What's the relation between this template and the other Legifrance templates?
  • {{Legifrance}} – generates an external link (not a citation) to a specific law, calculating the external link based on the 'base' and 'number' params to locate a specific law. It could be used in the External links section, and is used by the other two templates to calculate the external link to the law on the Légifrance website. It could also be used with template {{rp|at=}} to link a specific law, when appended after a general instance of {{Cite legifrance}} that doesn't itself link a particular law.
  • {{Sfn Legifrance}} wraps template {{sfn}} to generate a short citation. It links the short citation to the full citation lower on the page as defined by the {{cite Legifrance}} template, and also names the externally defined French law, and links to it.
  • {{Cite Legifrance}} – generates a full citation to the Legifrance website. This may be used in two ways: when used with no parameters and placed in the "References" or "Works cited" section, it fully specifies the Légifrance website and provides an anchor for short citations generated by {{Sfn Legifrance}}; when used this way, it is paired with {{Sfn Legifrance}} and provides automatic linkage for it. Secondly, when used inline with parameters 'base' and 'number', and embedded in <ref>...</ref> tags, it generates a full, inline citation to a specific law, suitable for pairing with named references inline, if desired.
Which one should I use?

This depends on whether your article is new, or exists already and has an existing referencing style, such as inline citations, or short footnotes. If it exists, then follow the existing style: this would call for using {{Cite Legifrance}} if the article already uses inline citations, and {{Sfn Legifrance}} if it already uses short footnotes.

If your article is new and only refers to a French law text once (or the same law several times), you could choose inline style, and then {{Cite Legifrance}} would be the one to use. Place it between ref tags, and include params |base= and |number= with it.

If your article is new and refers to several different French laws, then your best bet may be to use short footnote style. In this case, include template {{Cite Legifrance}} *just once* (with no parameters) in your "Works cited" or "References" section, and then use {{Sfn Legifrance}} throughout the article, whenever you need to cite a particular legal code item.

Abrogated laws

The template does not currently link to abrogated laws. That may be added in forthcoming versions.

Alternatives to this template edit

To create a full citation to a Legifrance article, the recommended way is to use this {{Cite Legifrance}} template. To create a full citation without using that template, you may do so by coding it yourself, and embedding the {{Legifrance}} template in the |at= param to create the external link to the specific penal code. Here's an example showing this as a full inline citation:

<ref name="CP 121-3">{{cite web |author=République française |date=19 October 2022 |title=Légifrance Le service public de la diffusion du droit |website=Légifrance |publisher=Secrétariat général du gouvernement |url=https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr |at={{legifrance|base=CP|number=121-3}} |access-date=22 May 2024}}

Note that in this inline citation example, the title will link to the home page of Légifrance, and the 'at' value will link directly to the law.

Examples edit

<ref>{{cite legifrance|base=CPP|number=121-3}}</ref> – an inline citation to a law

{{cite legifrance}} – full citation to Légifrance, suitable for inclusion in the "References" or "Works cited" section, where short footnote templates ({{sfn Legifrance}}, {{sfn}}) can link to it.

See also edit