Related Rule
France
Practice Relating to Rule 109. Search for, Collection and Evacuation of the Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked
France’s LOAC Summary Note (1992) provides: “Wounded, sick and shipwrecked shall be searched for and collected … by the Party to the conflict in whose power they may be.”
France, Fiche de Synthèse sur les Règles Applicables dans les Conflits Armés, Note No. 432/DEF/EMA/OL.2/NP, Général de Corps d’Armée Voinot (pour l’Amiral Lanxade, Chef d’Etat-major des Armées), 1992, § 2.1.
France’s LOAC Teaching Note (2000) provides: “The wounded, sick and shipwrecked shall be searched for and collected … by the Party to the conflict in whose power they may be.”
France, Fiche didactique relative au droit des conflits armés, Directive of the Ministry of Defence, 4 January 2000, annexed to the Directive No. 147 of the Ministry of Defence of 4 January 2000, p. 3.
France’s LOAC Manual (2001) restates Article 15 of the 1949 Geneva Convention I and Article 18 of the 1949 Geneva Convention II.
France, Manuel de droit des conflits armés, Ministère de la Défense, Direction des Affaires Juridiques, Sous-Direction du droit international humanitaire et du droit européen, Bureau du droit des conflits armés, 2001, pp. 37 and 64.
France’s Code of Defence (2004), as amended in 2008, states:
Combatants must collect, protect and care for the wounded, sick and shipwrecked without any discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, religion, nationality, ideology or ethnic group.
France, Code of Defence, 2004, as amended in 2008, Article D4122-8.
In February 1987, the French Government issued a communiqué in relation to the besieged Palestinian camps in southern Lebanon and invited “the entire international community to mobilize and act in solidarity so that … wounded can be safely evacuated”.
France, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Communiqué on Palestinian camps under siege in Lebanon, 11 February 1987, Politique étrangère de la France, February 1987, p. 103.
The instructions given to the French armed forces for the conduct of Opération Mistral, simulating a military operation under the right of self-defence or a mandate of the UN Security Council, state: “The wounded and sick, whether civilian or military, must be respected, collected, protected and cared for.”
France, Etat-major de la Force d’Action Rapide, Ordres pour l’Opération Mistral, 1995, Section 6, § 62.
