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Legal deposit
The publisher’s duty to deposit every book it distributes in France with the Bibliothèque nationale de France, no later than the day it goes on sale. The book carries a “dépôt légal” line giving the month and year.
In practice
For the printer, legal deposit comes down to the page carrying its imprint (the achevé d’imprimer, with the printer’s name and the date of printing), next to which goes the deposit line the publisher supplies. Keep that page free in the layout before the proof, often the last one or the back of the title page, and ask the printer for the exact wording of its imprint.