It is said that the equivalence principle – promoting equivalence between the kinds of fault that are recognised and the prejudices suffered or interests protected – is a peculiarity of the French law of civil liability deduced from the general clause of liability enshrined in the French Civil Code. The principle is applied in different ways in contractual and extra-contractual liability. In fact, the equivalence principle is more of a façade than a genuine reflection of French law, which provides for both the differentiated protection of interests and a hierarchical ordering between them.