This work has two parts and an appendix. In the first part, drawing on the etymology and on the discursive, formal and pragmatic features of minifiction and micro-narrative, the author analyzes the two concepts and explains why they cannot be taken as synonyms. In the second part, she reviews the three designations most used in the French-speaking field to name what the Hispanic world designates by microrrelato, namely: micronouvelle, microfiction and microrécit and, relying on the texts of Jacques Sternberg, Pierre Bettencourt, Georges Koleba, Jean-Paul Dubois and David Thomas, she briefly traces the trajectory of this discursive modality in French. The appendix brings together a handful of paradigm micro-narratives from these authors.