France
Practice Relating to Rule 146. Reprisals against Protected Persons
Section B. Wounded, sick and shipwrecked in the power of the adversary
France’s Disciplinary Regulations (1975), as amended, in a provision entitled “Respect for the rules of international law applicable in armed conflicts” dealing with the duties of and prohibitions for combatants, states: “By virtue of the international conventions ratified or approved: … it is prohibited [to soldiers in combat]: … to take hostages, to engage in reprisals or collective punishments.”
France’s LOAC Manual (2001), in the chapter dealing with means and methods of warfare, states: “The law of armed conflict prohibits … methods of warfare which consist in the recourse: … to reprisals against non-military objectives.” The manual further refers to Article 46 of the 1949 Geneva Convention I, Article 47 of the 1949 Geneva Convention II and Article 20 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I and states: “Reprisals are prohibited against … the wounded, sick and shipwrecked.”
France’s Code of Defence (2004), as amended in 2008, states that “the wounded, sick and shipwrecked … are protected persons … Reprisals against protected persons are prohibited.”
At the CDDH, France made a proposal for a draft article on reprisals within the 1977 Additional Protocol I – which it later withdrew – which read as follows “3. … The measures may not involve any actions prohibited by the Geneva Conventions of 1949.”