Marcel Planiol (23 September 1853 – 31 August 1931) was a French professor of law at the University of Rennes, then at the Sorbonne.

[2] Planiol studied at the Faculty of Law of Paris, and wrote his thesis on Droit romain : Des bénéfices accordés aux héritiers.

[1] He contributed to La Grande Encyclopédie of André Berthelot and wrote on public and private law in Brittany, a work that won an award from the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.

The work explained French civil law in moral terms of fault, obligation and responsibility.

It illustrated the rules by real life examples, and promoted natural law, a small number of common sense maxims, which the legislator must accept.