[2] Established in 1799 by Napoleon as a successor to the King's Council (Conseil du Roi), it is located in the Palais-Royal in Paris and is primarily made up of top-level legal officers.

The Vice President of the Council of State ranks as the ninth most important[3] civil servant in France.

The Council of State mainly recruits from among the top-ranking students graduating from the École nationale d'administration.

Specifically, French kings maintained their privilege to decide major issues and hand down judgment when administrative acts were in dispute.

Legal advisors also assisted the King in developing new laws and, by delegated jurisdiction, directly exercised sovereign rights (jura regalia).

While strictly speaking the Council of State is not a court, it functions as a judicial body by adjudicating suits and claims against administrative authorities.

[16] The Council hears cases against decisions of the national government, notably government orders, ministerial rules and regulations, judgments handed down by committees, commissions, and boards with nationwide jurisdiction, as well as suits concerning regional and EU electoral matters.

However, in the interest of swifter decision-making and correct interpretation of the law (bonne administration de la justice),[18] it also has the right to rule on the case without transferring it, thus acting as an appellate court of last resort (jugement en dernier ressort).

The smaller cases (without new legal issues) are treated by one chamber (known as under-departments, i.e. sous-section, prior to their reorganization in 2016[19]).

Although, as is the general rule in French administrative law, the procedure is written, one of its highlights are the oral conclusion of the rapporteur public (public magistrate), giving his personal vision of the case, totally impartial and free, on a pure legal point of view.

Nonetheless, and unlike in common law jurisdictions operating under stare decisis, those former judgements do not constitute a binding precedent for French judges, who remain free to adapt or overturn them (in a so-called renversement de jurisprudence).

While France is a civil law country and there is no formal rule of precedent (stare decisis), lower courts follow the jurisprudence constante doctrine with regard to the Council of State.

The Council has shaped its own legal doctrine which consists mostly of principles deduced from cases but incorporates considerable jurisprudence derived from statutes.

Rulings are named for the moving parties (appellants) in the cases and under highly formal courtesy titles.

The most important rulings are collected in a publication called "G.A.J.A" (i.e. Les Grands Arrêts de la Jurisprudence Administrative – The major rulings of the administrative jurisprudence -), published by Dalloz editions and written by some of the most influential authors or judges of the time in France (e.g. Bruno Genevois or Prosper Weil).

Important rulings include: The Council of State is linked to the French Institute of Administrative Sciences (IFSA).