Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

No, it's different in many many ways. And there are not just one, but four courts of last resort in France:

- Cour de Cassation, for civil matters

- Conseil d'État, for matters regarding the administration / the State

- Tribunal des Conflits: tasked with deciding who's right when the Cour de Cassation and the Conseil d'État disagree

- Conseil Constitutionnel: issues rulings about the constitutionality of laws, both new (before they become law) and existing ones (QPC)

This doesn't stop here however; there are two upper courts in the European Union, than can invalidate decisions issued by national courts:

- Court of Justice (in Luxembourg)

- Court of Human Rights (in Strasbourg)

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Edit: Don't you love the idea of "Tribunal des Conflits"? The original idea was that the State could not be brought to court, its decisions being made by "the people" who is the absolute sovereign.

Then France gradually accepted the idea that State's decision could be challenged, and created a whole different judicial system, the "justice administrative". It took a looong time: from 1800 to... 1980. A much simpler approach could have been to let people try their case against the State before the existing courts, but no... much better to build another system with its own rules, its own judges, etc.

An inevitable consequence of having two different systems is that they sometimes disagree. (Another reason why it would have been so much simpler to just have one system.) Since the two systems are sometimes at odds with one another, we created... a third system! This was in 1872, so quite early in the process.

This Tribunal des Conflits is a referee of sorts whose only job is to stop the fights between the two justice systems. I think that's great and tells a lot about the French way of solving problems: just add a new bureaucratic authority on top of all existing ones.

If it's the final court for civil matters in France I would argue it's still a supreme court.

One difference among many: the Cour de Cassation does not issue decisions, exactly; it can only hold or break a decision from a lower court. If it chooses to break the lower court's decision (casser=to break) then the case is sent back to said court to be decided again, with new guidance from the upper court.

That's what the law say anyway:

    Le Conseil d'Etat est la juridiction administrative suprême.

(see: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000...)

Note that's it's not civil matters but matters related to government action (from say, basic rights to labor disputes for State employees or citizenship issues).

That's also typically how the U.S. Supreme Court works, except for those few oddball cases where it has original jurisdiction. The losing party from the lower court files a petition for certiorari (judicial review). The Supreme Court may grant it, hear the two parties' arguments, and reach an opinion which is sent back to the lower courts, who are then responsible for resolving any remaining questions.

More complexity, but also each of them having less power. Which itself might be a good thing (separation of powers) or a bad thing (inability to stand up against legislative & executive powers).