JFYI it is a rather common contract in Italy too, besides France, basically "full" property is divided into two parts:
1) "Nuda proprietà" (literally "Naked Property" but actually "bare ownership")
2) "Usufrutto" (usufruct or "life interest")
Selling the bare ownership is a rather convenient way to monetize your house when you are old and need some money (for medical expenses or whatever), while retaining the usufruct, which resolves usually to the right to live in it (but could be also be pocketing the income from renting the building).
The buyer of the bare ownership, on the other hand, pays in advance a (reduced) amount of money for the asset, but essentially "bets" on how soon it will become available.
It is often used also to reduce the amount of taxes payed to the state by the (future) heirs.
It isn't really applicable to the US, mainly for taxation reasons:
http://publications.ruchelaw.com/news/2016-09/Usufruct-Code-...
The above article includes a French table of the percentages attributed to the two parts and here are the same valid in Italy (they are not much different):
http://www.tonalini.it/resources/pdf/Usufrutto-vitalizio-Tab...