Book Copyright Page Requirements in France (+ Free Generator)

What the French Copyright Page Holds

A French book carries its imprint on the verso of the title page, sometimes echoed in a colophon on the last page. It gathers the mentions obligatoires (the statutory mentions), the copyright lines, and the achevé d'imprimer, the short printing statement that closes the book. For a translated title it also names the original work and the translator.

Two duties sit behind this page: printing the mandatory mentions in the book, and the dépôt légal, a separate delivery of copies to the Bibliothèque nationale de France. One is ink on the page, the other is a shipment.

What Is Legally Required

For a book published or printed in France, the arrêté du 12 janvier 1995 lists the mentions obligatoires:

• The publisher's (éditeur) name and address. For a self-published book, that is your own name and address.
• The "Dépôt légal" line, with the month and year of publication.
• The ISBN.
• The price in euros (in practice widely omitted on print-on-demand books).
• The printer's name and address, and the date printing was completed (the achevé d'imprimer).

The last one mostly takes care of itself. If you print through KDP or IngramSpark, as most self-publishers do, the service adds its own page stating where each copy was printed, and your copyright page carries "Impression à la demande" instead of a traditional achevé d'imprimer (the generator below does this). Only if you hire a printer directly do you add their name, address and the completion date yourself.

Strictly speaking these mentions only bind books published or printed in France, and the BnF states that imported copies carry none of them. If you publish through Kindle Direct Publishing from abroad, your copies are often printed elsewhere in the EU and count as imported, so the law may not even apply to your book. In practice you should include the mentions anyway: you cannot control where any given copy gets printed, they cost nothing to add, and a French reader expects to see them.

Separately from the French mentions, since December 2024 the EU General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) adds its own requirements for any print book sold in the EU, France included:

• Your name, postal address and a contact email.
• If you are based outside the EU: the name and contact details of an EU-established responsible person, who takes product-safety responsibility for the book.

This layer is separate from the mentions obligatoires and does not follow the imported-copies exemption. It targets the manufacturer of the book, and that detail is good news: with print-on-demand, the manufacturer is the print service, not you, as the next section explains.

Do You Need an EU Responsible Person?

For most self-publishers, no. Print-on-demand services are the printer and manufacturer of the books they produce, so GPSR compliance is theirs to handle. We asked Amazon directly, and KDP support answered in writing that you do not need to do anything (their reply came in French; the translation is ours):

For KDP paperback and hardcover books, Amazon is the printer and the manufacturer. [...] You do not need to designate an EU responsible person for your KDP books. [...] The responsible person and manufacturer details are displayed on the Amazon product detail page itself, in the "Product safety and resources" section. They appear on the product listing, not in the book. [...] You do not need to add GPSR information to your copyright page.

IngramSpark does the same automatically for any book it is the exclusive printer of, though that cover falls away if the same ISBN is also printed elsewhere. If you print through another service, ask them how they handle the GPSR before publishing; they most likely take care of it the same way.

The picture only changes if you arrange your own printing through a traditional printer. You are then the manufacturer, so the page should carry your contact email and, if you are based outside the EU, the name and address of an EU-established responsible person. Check "I'm arranging my own printing (not using print-on-demand)" in the generator below to add these lines. If you do not know anyone in the EU to name, dedicated responsible-person services offer a contact for a yearly fee. For perspective, we could not find an instance of any authority in France or elsewhere in the EU fining or prosecuting an indie author over a missing responsible person; the realistic exposure is a marketplace removing a listing.

Ebooks are not covered by this obligation, so this tool adds the GPSR lines to the print format only.

What Is Optional

Everything else on the page is publishing convention rather than law. Copyright protection is automatic in France, so these lines document ownership without creating it:

• The © line, such as "© Author, 2026".
• The "Tous droits réservés" notice, either short or with the long boilerplate citing article L.122-4 of the Code de la propriété intellectuelle.
• For a translated book: the original title ("Titre original"), a © line for the original work, and a separate © line for the French translation, such as "© Author, 2026, pour la traduction française". The translator is usually named on the title page as well, a nod to their moral rights.

Do You Have to Send Copies to the BnF?

For most self-publishers, and unless based in France, no. The dépôt légal is a legal duty to deliver copies of your book to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, separate from the "Dépôt légal" line printed on the page (that line is one of the mentions and costs nothing to include). The duty only applies to publishers established in France: if you live outside France and self-publish, you have nothing to send. Copies printed abroad and imported into France are the importer's problem, not yours, and even then only past 100 copies.

Sending your book anyway is entirely optional, and the BnF welcomes it: a voluntary deposit puts your French-market edition in the national collection. One ordinary retail copy is enough, and the BnF accommodates print-on-demand (an "impression à la demande" note replaces the printer address). If you live in France and publish your own book, you are the publisher, and the deposit duty does apply to you.

Children's Books: The 1949 Youth Publications Law

Books aimed at young readers fall under loi n° 49-956 du 16 juillet 1949 on publications for children and adolescents. They must carry a bold line on the first or last page naming that law, followed by the month and year of the deposit made with the Ministry of Justice. This is specific to jeunesse titles and sits alongside the ordinary mentions.

Print-on-Demand: KDP and IngramSpark

Two cautions for the print-on-demand route. Amazon must not be named as the publisher: you or your imprint are the publisher, and Amazon is only the printing service. And neither KDP nor IngramSpark deposits your book at the BnF, so if you want the book in the national collection, the voluntary deposit described above is yours to make.