Economic analysis of law (eal) was born in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. However, it took more than two decades before it was fully accepted in France. The aim of this article is to describe the reception and slow dissemination of eal in France and the way the French situation changed from the 1980s until the early 2010s. It also attempts to put forward a few reasons why eal developed so late in France and why this evolution did not occur until the 1990s and 2000s.