Formal notice is the act by which the creditor formally calls on the debtor to perform. The order to pay is its most threatening form: served by a commissaire de justice, it opens a period on the expiry of which a specific sanction is triggered — the termination clause taking effect, or a seizure.
Its wording is not a formality. To trigger a termination clause, the formal notice must expressly mention the clause. And the case law assesses the fairness of the implementation in the light of the order itself: what is complained of elsewhere does not count.
In the Antibes case file, it is the orders to pay served in 1998 that the Paris Court of Appeal held to have been served in bad faith — hence the wrongful nature of the termination.