Règle correspondante
France
Practice Relating to Rule 28. Medical Units
France’s Disciplinary Regulations (1978), as amended, provides that soldiers in combat must respect and protect hospitals and places where the wounded and sick, civilian or military, are collected, as well as medical units, buildings and materials.
France, Règlement de Discipline Générale dans les Armées, Decree No. 75-675 of 28 July 1975, replacing Decree No. 66-749, completed by Decree of 11 October 1978, implemented by Instruction No. 52000/DEF/C/5 of 10 December 1979, and modified by Decree of 12 July 1982, Ministère de la Défense, Etat-Major de l’Armée de Terre, Bureau Emploi, Article 9 bis (1).
France’s LOAC Summary Note (1992) provides: “The specific immunity granted to certain persons and objects by the law of war [including the material of military and civilian medical services] must be strictly observed … They may not be attacked.”
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, §§ 2.2 and 2.3.
The Summary Note further states:
The immunity of specifically protected objects may only be lifted under certain conditions and under the personal responsibility of the commander. Military necessity justifies only those measures which are indispensable for the accomplishment of the mission.
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, § 2.4.
France’s LOAC Manual (2001), with reference to Article 12 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, includes medical units among objects which are specifically protected by the law of armed conflict.
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, p. 30.
France’s Code of Defence (2004), as amended in 2008, states:
[Combatants] shall respect and protect hospitals and other movable or immovable property dedicated to [health] care unless these properties are used to commit, outside their humanitarian function, acts harmful [to the combatant].
France, Code of Defence, 2004, as amended in 2008, Article D4122-10.
France’s Penal Code (1992), as amended in 2010, states in its section on war crimes common to both international and non-international armed conflicts:
Intentionally launching attacks against … medical units … displaying, in accordance with international law, the distinctive emblems provided for in the [1949 Geneva Conventions] or their [1977] Additional Protocols is punishable by 20 years’ imprisonment.
France, Penal Code, 1992, as amended in 2010, Article 461-12.
In 1994, during a debate in the UN Security Council concerning the situation in Rwanda, France stated that the international community was faced with a “humanitarian catastrophe” to which it “could not fail to react”, and referred in particular to the fact that hospitals had not been spared by attacks.
France, Statement before the UN Security Council, UN Doc. S/PV.3377, 16 May 1994, p. 11.
Under 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, medical units shall be protected.
France, État-major de la Force d’Action Rapide, Ordres pour l’Opération Mistral, 1995, Section 6, § 62.
