ABSTRACT
Like its English law counterpart, the criminal law in France seeks to penalise those actions and omissions which are deemed to be so unacceptable even in a free society as to threaten the very foundations of the social order if no corrective action is undertaken. Although in recent years there has been a trend away from confining such corrective action to the mere imposition of punitive sentences and towards a combination of preventative action and rehabilitating the perpetrators of crime, the notion of penalising criminal offences remains central to the French droit pénal.
