French criminal law is "the set of legal rules that govern the State's response to offenses and offenders". It is one of the branches of the juridical system of the French Republic. The field of criminal law is defined as a sector of French law, and is a combination of public and private law, insofar as it punishes private behavior on behalf of society as a whole. Its function is to define, categorize, prevent, and punish criminal offenses committed by a person, whether a natural person () or a legal person (). In this sense it is of a punitive nature, as opposed to which settles disputes between individuals, or administrative law which deals with issues between individuals and government.
Criminal offenses are divided into three categories, according to increasing severity: contraventions, délits, and crimes. The last two categories are determined by the legislature, while contraventions are the responsibility of the executive branch. This tripartite division is matched by the courts responsible for enforcing criminal law: the police tribunal for infractions; the Correctional court for ; the cour d'assises for . Criminal law is carried out within the rules of French criminal procedure which set the conditions under which and are carried out.
Like the legal systems of other liberal democracies, French criminal law is based on three guiding principles: the principle of legality in criminal law, an illegal act (actus reus), and intent (mens rea). It has been influenced by various legal, ethical, and scientific philosophical movements over the centuries. While most of these influences are national in origin, European courts (such as the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights) have also influenced French criminal law. French criminal law was first codified during the French Revolution, resulting in the French Penal Code of 1791. Under the First Empire, Napoleon enacted the Penal Code of 1810, replaced by the French penal code of 1994.
The public prosecutor and his staff are responsible for the pursuit of legal proceedings and criminal prosecution, in collaboration with the police. To determine the offense, the judge must have a preexisting legal basis (), a (actus reus) and a (mens rea). The offense can only be charged if the perpetrator is mentally competent, and has consented to the commission of a criminal act (as perpetrator or accomplice) of their own free will. If the offense is attributed to a perpetrator, they are liable to , which may be aggravated or mitigated according to the circumstances. The judicial authority pronounces a sentence according to the severity of the acts: imprisonment or detention, fine, , , day-fine, and so on. The convicted person may appeal the decision to the court of appeal, and, ultimately, to the Court of Cassation.
Background
Dual systems
France has a dual system of law: one system deals with private relationships, and is sometimes called "private law" () or "ordinary law" (), and the other system which covers administrative officials, and is called "administrative law" (). This duality is not merely or mainly about covering different domains or legal topics, and in fact, the two systems overlap and deal with some of the same or similar topics. Rather, the duality is about the fact that the authorities which enforce them and which also develop their content are completely autonomous and independent of each other.
The two systems have entirely separate judges, courts, and bodies of written texts which support them, and are known in French as "orders": the "judiciary order" () for private law, and the "administrative order" () for public law. This separation came about during the French Revolution, when the justice system was established respecting a strict separation of powers in the law of 16–24 August 1790 in particular, article 13.
Administrative order
The administrative order has jurisdiction (compétence) over cases between the state and public organizations, as well as between individuals and the public organs of government, and thus stands apart from the criminal law system, which is part of the judiciary order.
Judiciary order
The judiciary system or order, is also known as "ordinary law" () and is further divided into two branches: civil law and criminal law.
The main function of criminal law is punishment for infractions, while the main function of civil law is compensation for damages. The main differences are that criminal law seeks to punish or penalize when an infraction against existing law is committed, and is "vertical" in the sense that it comes from the government down towards an individual or legal entity; whereas civil law establishes a horizontal framework among members of society, and seeks to facilitate reparation of damages caused by one member of society towards another.
Civil and criminal law come together in certain cases, such as civil procedures which involve a criminal aspect. Although the goal of civil law is to compensate a victim via the awarding of damages, damages can have occurred during the commission of a criminal offense. Article 2 of the French penal code addresses this situation, and offers victims the option of suing for damages via a civil action in the criminal courts.
The two branches, civil and criminal, are mirrored in the types of actions a person or official may take in an attempt to right wrongs, namely civil action () in the case of civil law, and public action () in the case of criminal law. In a civil matter, someone who feels they are a victim of another member of society may identify themselves as a victim to judicial authorities, and seek compensation from the perpetrator. A criminal matter is dealt with by a public action () to punish the perpetrator. In particular, it is up to the public prosecutor to initiate this action on behalf of the public, and to seek punishment for the accused, rather than reparations.
History
The Republic of France has had three penal codes: the code of 1791, the code of 1810, and the code of 1994, still in effect as of 2022.
Precursors
The origins of criminal law go back to family justice, retribution for perceived offenses, and revenge. Private revenge was originally a way of maintaining a rough sort of social order among clans, with fear of revenge the deterrent factor. This created a certain respect for strangers and other clans, and when a settling of accounts was necessary, this could take place not only against a presumed perpetrator, but also against their family, the clan chief, or top clan members, so that criminal liability was originally collective and not individual.
With the Fall of the Roman Empire officials in charge of police disappeared. With the rise of feudalism in France, policing powers were dispersed among a multitude of seigneurs. Lords of their fiefs, they were all-powerful, including that of justice among the peasants they controlled.
As states evolved and gained power, private justice receded; the State was only involved insofar as procedural control of private revenge, to control excesses. France was influenced by the texts of Roman justice which were still available and studied, and by the thirteenth century, the state started to become more involved, and the previous system of private justice evolved into public justice, with the State assuming the power of suppression, targeting social wrongs rather than individual, private ones, in which private victims or plaintiffs became secondary to the state's role.
These private and public systems coexisted for a while. A crime could be seen as the failure of a monarch to keep the oath he took upon accession, to maintain peace in the kingdom, which justified the interest in public repression of crime, if the individuals concerned could not do so privately. By the sixteenth century, individuals sometimes had to seek permission from the monarch to engage in self-defense. This has further evolved today, to the point where self-defense is still permitted if one is in immediate danger, otherwise, it is allocated to the authorities. Revenge was no longer permitted to individuals, but appropriated by the monarch, based on their divine power.
Suspension of trial by ordeal
In medieval France and elsewhere in Europe, trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of an accused was determined, such as trial by battle, by fire, or water. The belief was that God determined the result, and presentation of evidence or witnesses played no part. This persisted for centuries, because people believed it worked, and there was no one (except the victim and the real perpetrator, who would remain silent) to say it did not. But by the 12th century belief in it began to weaken, led by opposing views from the Church. Opposition became widespread, and in 1215 the Church condemned trial by ordeal in the Fourth Lateran Council. This meant priests could no longer use trial by ordeal to determine guilt or innocence, and other means had to be found.
The Church already had one other method, which hitherto had been used only for cases of offenses against the clergy, and for cases of suspected heresy, namely they would organize a commission of inquiry headed by some trustworthy individual to find out the facts. The investigator would question suspects and witnesses and write up a report. The ruling on guilt or innocence would be based on the written dossier. This formal investigation, or "inquisition", is the basis of the inquisitorial system in France. England took a different approach, summoning a group of people to answer the question of guilt or innocence formerly assigned to God, and this became the origin of trial by jury and the accusatorial system.
Church
Development of the French criminal justice system has important roots in ecclesiastical law of the Roman Catholic Church. While England was moving towards the adversarial system of criminal justice, in France was laying the basis for the inquisitorial system. This goes back to the medieval church's efforts to investigate and eliminate heresies. In southern France of the 12th century for example, corruption and immoral behavior by clerics led to the establishment of various movements in response such as the Cathari, that the Church declared heretical, and authorized a Crusade against them at the Third Lateran Council. Despite this and much bloodshed, the movement grew. At the 1229 Council of Toulouse, Dominicans organized investigations into the heresy, attempting either to change their beliefs or stopping their proliferation; these were called inquisitions, and secular criminal procedure began to adapt the church methods into their own systems, and became the basis for the French inquisitorial system.
Maréchaussée
French criminal justice goes back to the Maréchaussée in the Middle Ages. From that time, and to a lesser extent until the end of the Ancien Régime, the functions of the police and the justice system were closely intertwined. Kings, lords and high dignitaries rendered justice. In that sense, justice in the armies was part of the remit of the Grand Constable of France, who succeeded the Seneschal in 1191 as head of the armies, and of the Marshals of France, who were his lieutenants. The Grand Constable and the marshals delegated their powers to their provosts.
These jurisdictions merged under Francis I under the name of the , with its seat in Paris.