France
Practice Relating to Rule 77. Expanding Bullets
France’s LOAC Summary Note (1992) states: “It is prohibited to use … projectiles that spread or flatten easily in the human body.”
France’s LOAC Teaching Note (2000) includes dum-dum bullets and other weapons with expanding heads in the list of weapons that “are totally prohibited by the law of armed conflict” because of their inhuman and indiscriminate character.
France’s LOAC Manual (2001) incorporates the content of the 1899 Hague Declaration concerning Expanding Bullets.
The manual further includes dum-dum bullets and other weapons with expanding heads in the list of weapons that “are totally prohibited by the law of armed conflict” because of their inhuman and indiscriminate character.
France’s Penal Code (1992), as amended in 2010, states in its section on war crimes related to international armed conflict: “[The following offences] are punishable by life imprisonment: … [u]sing bullets that easily deform in the human body”.