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The widow and four children of Johnny Hallyday at the burial of the singer, December 9, 2017. LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP

The court of Nanterre has considered itself competent, this Tuesday, May 28, to settle the thorny question of the inheritance of the singer Johnny Hallyday, object of a conflict between his widow Laeticia and the two elder children of the star, Laura Smet and David Hallyday.

In the judicial arm-of-iron that opposes the two seniors Hallyday to their stepmother, a decisive round has just been played. And it's a win for the first ones. The Nanterre court said Tuesday that Johnny Hallyday was much more French than American and therefore it is French law that applies to his estate.

The singer has kept " until the end a way of life both itinerant and bohemian, but especially very French, which led him to live in a (...) usual way, in France, " said the court in his prescription. Despite his many trips and stays in the United States, Johnny Hallyday was a French resident at the time of his death in December 2017, he concluded. The court notably retained the singer's many tours, mainly in France, in which he participated until the end of his life, and " which have always attracted an exclusively French and above all French audience ".

David Hallyday and Laura Smet have been engaged for more than a year in a legal battle against Laeticia Hallyday to obtain their share of inheritance which they consider to have been deprived by a will written in California. In this document dating from 2014, the rocker bequeaths all his fortune to his last wife and their two daughters.

► To read: The Hallyday family is torn around the legacy of the singer

There are now five heirs, said Emmanuel Ravanas, Laura Smet's lawyer, the widow of the singer, their two adopted daughters, Laura Smet and David Hallyday. " The truth is that this procedure will be held in France, under French law as we have been saying for over a year, " he insists.

By the voice of her lawyer, Laeticia Hallyday said her amazement and declared her intention to appeal. The next French step in this case will be played at the Court of Appeal of Versailles, where a hearing should however not take place before next year. According to the various actors of the file, the procedure could last a decade for lack of amicable agreement.

Still, the decision of the court of Nanterre should now make it legally impossible to transfer the assets of the singer in a US trust for the exclusive benefit of his last wife, as she has recently tried to do.