French Code of Criminal Procedure
In forceExcept in the cases provided for in Subtitle I of Title I of Book IV for the application of the Convention on the Statute of the International Criminal Court, opened for signature in Rome on 18 July 1998, any person suspected of having committed abroad one of the following offences may be prosecuted and tried by the French courts, if he is habitually resident in the territory of the Republic:
1° The crime of genocide defined in Chapter I of Subtitle I of Title I of Book II of the code pénal ;
2° Other crimes against humanity defined in Chapter II of the same Subtitle I, if the acts are punishable under the law of the State where they were committed or if that State or the State of which the suspected person is a national is a party to the aforementioned convention;
3° War crimes and offences defined in articles 461-1 to 461-31 of the same code, if the acts are punishable under the law of the State where they were committed or if that State or the State of which the suspected person is a national is a party to the aforementioned convention.
Prosecution of these crimes may only be carried out at the request of the anti-terrorist public prosecutor and if no international or national court requests the surrender or extradition of the person. To this end, the public prosecutor ensures that no proceedings have been initiated by the International Criminal Court and verifies that no other international court with jurisdiction to try the person has requested his surrender and that no other State has requested his extradition. When, in application of article 40-3 of the present code, the Public Prosecutor at the Paris Court of Appeal receives an appeal against a decision to close a case taken by the Anti-Terrorism Public Prosecutor, he or she hears the person who reported the facts if that person so requests. If it considers the appeal to be unfounded, it will inform the person concerned in a reasoned written decision.
