The French Republic signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 23 July 1998, becoming a State Party on 1 March 1999. National implementing legislation, which includes penal sanctions, was enacted on 8 July 1998. On 30 April 2012, France submitted its 14^th Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report.

In the past, France produced, exported, and used antipersonnel mines. France completed destruction of its stockpile of 1,397,547 antipersonnel mines on 20 December 1999, well in advance of its 1 March 2003 treaty-mandated deadline. France initially retained 4,539 antipersonnel mines for training and development purposes, but this number was reduced to 3,941 by the end of 2011.[1] France served as co-chair of the Standing Committee on Technologies for Mine Action (1999–2000), and as co-rapporteur and then co-chair of the Standing Committee on Victim Assistance (2001–2003).

France attended the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in November–December 2011 and the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in Geneva in May 2012. At both meetings, France reaffirmed its “unwavering” commitment to the treaty’s universalization and gave updates on its efforts, in cooperation with Handicap International, to promote the treaty and demarche states not party.[2]

France is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.

On 28 May 2008, in advance of its 1 March 2009 mine clearance deadline, France declared it had successfully completed clearance of a mined area around an ammunition storage area near La Doudah, Djibouti. France has no known mined areas, but mines and unexploded ordnance from World War I and World War II are occasionally found.

 

Commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Policy

The French Republic signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 3 December 2008 and ratified on 25 September 2009. It was among the first 30 ratifications to trigger the convention’s entry into force on 1 August 2010.

France’s implementing legislation for the convention is the Law on the Elimination of Cluster Munitions, enacted on 20 July 2010.[1] A Council of State decree issued on 28 June 2011 assigned responsibility for implementation of the law to various governmental departments and expanded the mandate of the French National Commission for the Elimination of Anti-Personnel Mines (Commission nationale pour l’élimination des mines antipersonnel, CNEMA) to include monitoring the national law on the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[2]

France submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 31 January 2011 and has provided annual updated reports ever since, including on 30 April 2014.[3]

France participated in the Oslo Process that produced the convention and its policy evolved considerably to support a comprehensive ban.[4]

France has continued to actively engage in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in Lusaka, Zambia in September 2013. France has attended every intersessional meeting of the convention in Geneva, including in April 2014. France has provided regular updates at these meetings on its stockpile destruction, universalization efforts, and other aspects of the convention’s implementation.

At the Fourth Meeting of States Parties in September 2013, France said that the Convention on Cluster Munitions embodies humanitarian disarmament and described its universalization as a key challenge. France works to promote the convention through bilateral demarches and in partnership with CMC co-founder Handicap International (HI).[5] At the UN General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2013, France called on all states not yet party to accede to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and “participate in the international community’s collective efforts to eliminate the threat posed by these weapons.”[6]

France was one of the first nations to express concern at Syria’s use of cluster munitions in October 2012 with a statement by Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurent Fabius denouncing the cluster munition use.[7] France condemned the use of cluster munitions by the Syrian government forces several times during 2013.[8] In September 2013, France observed that it is “now established” that cluster munitions continue to be used and condemned the use “in the strongest terms.”[9] France voted in favor of two UNGA resolutions in 2013 that condemned the Syrian government’s use of cluster munitions, including Resolution 68/182 on 18 December 2013, which expressed “outrage” at Syria’s “continued widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights…including those involving the use of…cluster munitions.”[10]

In its role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, France endorsed a resolution on 27 May 2014 that expressed concern at the “indiscriminate” use of cluster munitions in South Sudan.[11]

HI and other French NGOs have continued to advocate for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, including at the annual “shoe pyramid” event on 28 September 2013, where HI collected 55,000 signatures for its petition calling on the government to increase its contributions to victim assistance and clearance efforts.[12]

Interpretive issues

France has provided its views on a number of issues important to the implementation and interpretation of the convention. On the issue of relations with states not party and the prohibition on assistance, France’s national implementation legislation contains an explicit prohibition on assistance with not only the use of cluster munitions, but also the production, offer, acquisition, importation, exportation, trade, and “brokerage” of cluster munitions.[13] The law allows for participation in military operations with states not party that might engage in activities prohibited by the convention, but prohibits any French person acting in a joint military operation to use, develop, manufacture, otherwise acquire, stockpile, or transfer cluster munitions, or to use or request the use of cluster munitions where the choice of ammunition is under their exclusive control.[14]

In 2010, the Secretary of State for Defense and Veterans stated that France does not consider it necessary for the convention’s positive obligations to be expressly mentioned in the law in order to be actively implemented.[15] France did so at the outset of the joint military operation in Libya in 2011, when it notified parties to the operation of its obligations under the convention to not use cluster munitions or assist in their use, informed them that it opposed any use of cluster munitions, and called on non-signatories to join the convention.[16]

Transit

France’s national law does not explicitly prohibit “transit” of cluster munitions. In 2011, France stated that transit across the territory, territorial waters, or airspace of a state “without transfer of ownership, is not prohibited.” It noted that its national implementation legislation copies the definition of transfer in the Convention on Cluster Munitions and therefore in its view only the sale, import, and export of cluster munitions would be prohibited.[17]

France has also stated that, while transit by other governments would be difficult to control, it will endeavor to prevent any state transit of cluster munitions on its territory and it will make its obligations and commitments known through diplomatic channels while urging other countries to respect them.[18]

On a related matter, France has yet to provide its view on the prohibition on foreign stockpiling of cluster munitions.

Investment

While the national law does not specifically prohibit investment in cluster munition production, France considers that knowingly financing, directly or indirectly, a prohibited activity under the convention is a case of assistance and is therefore also prohibited. In 2010, the Secretary of State for Defense and Veterans told the Senate that such financing would constitute assistance, encouragement, or inducement, and so would fall within the scope of the criminal offenses of the bill.[19]

Efforts to include an explicit prohibition on investment in the draft national implementing legislation were rejected by the government in 2010, which said that a specific ban on investments would jeopardize general industrial partnerships between French companies and foreign companies that may produce cluster munitions and threaten arms industry jobs.[20] The government said it would propose legislative changes if CNEMA agreed that the law was insufficient to address investment in cluster munition producers.[21]

CNEMA has discussed disinvestment measures several times since 2012.

HI has continued its engagement with several financial institutions, including with BNP Paribas and within CNEMA, to address the issue of the full implementation of the prohibition on investment in cluster munition production by French Financial institutions. In a 2012 report on worldwide investments in cluster munitions, NGOs IKV Pax Christi (now PAX) and FairFin reviewed the efforts of French financial institutions, including Axa, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, and Société Générale, to disinvest from cluster munition producers.[22]

France is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Use, production, and transfer

France has stated that it last used cluster munitions in 1991 in Iraq and Kuwait.[23] France also reportedly used cluster munitions in Chad in 1986.[24]

France has not produced or exported cluster munitions since 2002.[25]

France listed four former cluster munition producers in its initial Article 7 report. It reported that decommissioning of cluster munition production facilities at Nexter (ex-Luchaire) was completed in July 2010. Thales TDA was decommissioned prior to the entry into force of the convention.[26] France has not yet reported on the decommissioning process for the two other former producers, SAE Alsetex and Groupe Lacroix.[27]

Giat Industries and Thomson Brandt Armements produced OGR 155mm dual purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) artillery projectiles. The company Matra produced BLG-66 Belouga aerial cluster bombs.[28] Prior to 2002, France exported Belouga cluster bombs to Argentina, Greece, and India.[29]

France has declared an export control policy on materials or components that could be used for the production of cluster munitions to the effect that these goods will not be exported if assurances cannot be obtained that the receiving state will not use them in the production of cluster munitions.[30]

France stockpiles some munitions not included under the definition of cluster munitions in the convention, such as BONUS 155mm projectiles with two submunitions and Apache missiles carrying KRISS anti-runway submunitions.[31]

Stockpiling and destruction

France has declared once possessing a stockpile of 34,856 cluster munitions of two types (21,893 M26 rockets and 12,963 OGR 155mm artillery projectiles) containing a total of 14.9 million submunitions.[32] It also destroyed 20 NR-269 155mm projectiles in 2011.[33]

Under Article 3 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, France is required to destroy all stockpiled cluster munitions under its jurisdiction and control as soon as possible, but not later than 1 August 2018.

In September 2013, France informed States Parties that it is working to complete stockpile destruction by 2018 and it is possible that it will finish “in advance of the deadline.”[34]

As of 31 December 2013, France has destroyed 20,559 cluster munitions and 5,792,049 submunitions since the convention’s entry into force.[35] It had a stockpile of 14,287 M26 rockets and 9,200,828 submunitions left to destroy as of the end of 2013.[36]

In September 2013, France announced the completion of destruction of its stockpile of 12,963 OGR 155mm artillery shells and 816,669 submunitions.[37]

Cluster munitions destroyed by France (as of 31 December 2013)[38]

The Ministry of Defense signed stockpile destruction agreements with the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA) in 2010, which in turn concluded an agreement with the French company MBDA in 2011 to destroy the stockpile at a cost of €20.2 million.[39] Under the agreement, MBDA agreed to establish a dedicated industrial facility to destroy the stockpile at Bourges-Suddray, which was inaugurated in July 2014.[40] MBDA also signed an agreement in 2012 with Italian company Esplodenti Sabino to destroy part of the stockpile at facilities in Lanciano in Italy. According to the 2014 Article 7 report, all destruction of cluster munitions by the end of 2013 was done by Esplodenti Sabino.[41]

In its 2014 Article 7 report, France confirmed the estimated total cost of its stockpile destruction at €20.2 million: approximately €585,000 for the destruction of its OGR cluster munitions and €18.3 million for the destruction of the M26 rockets.[42] It reported that an initial installment of funding (€15 million) for 2011 and 2012 had been paid to NAMSA and that the Ministry of Defense would fund the remaining balance over the next four years, at approximately €2.25 million a year.[43]

Retention

In the 2014 Article 7 report, France declared that it is retaining nine cluster munitions containing 4,053 submunitions, as well as 42 individual submunitions outside of their containers.[44] This represents a significant reduction from the initial declaration in 2011 that 55 cluster munitions containing 10,284 submunitions, and 58 additional individual submunitions were being retained.[45]

Cluster munitions and submunitions retained by France (as of 31 December 2013)[46]

N/A = not applicable

France reported consuming 288 individual KB-1 and KB-2 submunitions, 568 individual submunitions from SAKR rockets, and 2 individual 74mm 9N22 submunitions during 2013.[47]

The number of cluster munitions retained for training in 2014 is far below the amount permitted by France’s national law (500 cluster munitions and their submunitions plus an additional 400 individual submunitions).[48] French NGOs have criticized the number of submunitions permitted by the national law as “excessive.”[49]

 

In 2012, France contributed €1,528,750 (US$1,965,819)[1] in mine action funding, an increase of €563,797 ($724,987) from 2011. The increase is mostly due to reporting a larger contribution to the Centre for Humanitarian Demining Training-West Africa (Centre de formation au déminage humanitaire-Afrique de l'Ouest, CPADD) in Bénin. As in previous years, the largest contribution went towards general support for training at CPADD (€1,280,785/$1,646,961).

Contributions by recipient: 2012[2]

France’s combined contribution for mine action in 2011 and 2012 is less than any single year from 2008–2010.

Summary of contributions: 2008–2012[3]