New twist for the succession of Alain Delon, disappeared on August 18, 2024. His son Alain-Fabien indeed initiated, on September 2, legal proceedings against his brother and older sister, Anthony and Anouchka, with the judicial court of Paris. The goal: to challenge a will dated November 24, 2022, established by his father before a notary, and which is an amendment to his original will, of September 29, 2015. However, in this second act, the actor attributes to Anouchka Delon, and to her only, the moral law of the whole of his work, that is to say “The rights of exploitation of his films, but also of his image, etc.”, Details Nathalie Couzigou-Suhas, notary in Paris.
In other words, Anouchka Delon thus obtains, in addition to the inheritance, a substantial source of income for the years to come. But to be able to challenge this decision, you still have to choose an angle of attack. In France, the Civil Code provides for several cases of dispute of a will. Here, it is his father’s mind for the writing of this second will that Alain-Fabien Delon disputes: “It will therefore be a question of demonstrating, and the burden of the evidence goes to Alain-Fabien, that his father was not healthy, that he did not have all his faculties at the time of the editorial staff, in a word, that he did not know what he was doing”, explains Nathalie Couzigou-Suhas.
The validity of the will is impossible to challenge
To support his approach, Alain-Fabien would have joined medical elements to his complaint: hospital reports, pet scans and letters from doctors who followed Alain Delon between 2019 and 2025. However, that may not be enough: “The courts sometimes assert the theory of lucid intervals, that is to say the fact that one can have moments of lucidity, even when one is under guardianship, and in this case the will is declared valid”, recalls the notary.
On the other hand, impossible to attack the validity of the will: the second is indeed what is called an authentic will, which was dictated and signed before two notaries. Conversely, it is possible, when it comes to a holograph testament, that is to say written by hand, to challenge its authenticity: “It is then enough to challenge the writing or signature of this document”specifies Nathalie Couzigou-Suhas. Another option: refute the form of the holograph will, if the date, signing, was typed on the computer, or that it can be proven that it was modified after signature, for example. Finally, a will can also be canceled if it can be proven that the testator was the victim of violence, intimidation or manipulation.
Last use possible: damage to the hereditary reserve. Indeed, in French law, a minimum part of the succession must return to children (or, failing that, the spouse). We can therefore challenge a will if one or more members of this hereditary reserve consider themselves injured. In the case of the succession of Alain Delon, the distribution between children does not seem questionable, since to advantaging his daughter Anouchka (which should receive 50% of the heritage), Alain Delon would have used the available quota, that is to say the share of his property which he can attribute freely, without damage to the hereditary reserve.
