When should you use the passé simple instead of other past tenses

Bonjour Roisin,

'Le Passé Simple' is omnipresent when it comes to written French, especially literary texts, but not only. You will find it in articles or biographies, so it's a very useful tense to recognise at first, but also to be able to use in higher levels, when you want your written French to sound more elegant than if you used its more common and spoken equivalent 'Le Passé Composé'.
It cannot be used instead of 'L'Imparfait' as those two tenses are complementary.

I hope that's helpful,

Aurélie

That's correct.