ABSTRACT
The French legislation on psychological and/or neuropsychological disorders entailing lack of intellectual insight and/or loss of control as grounds for modifying or excluding individual responsibility in criminal matters has evolved and a close look at the legal developments rapidly reveals the politicisation of the debates and considerations. Rather predictably, the causes for modifying or excluding individual criminal responsibility under French criminal law may be either objective or subjective. Where French criminal law seems to stand out from other domestic systems, however, is precisely in its specific understanding of this last category of potential grounds for modifying or excluding individual criminal responsibility. The perpetrator of the offence will be considered not criminally responsible and the ruling will automatically be a declaration of lack of responsibility. Responsibility is inherent to the condition of being human and any reform of the criminal law based on the premise of lack of responsibility would open the door to abuses and undeserved leniency.
