Policy

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.

France previously played a prominent role in promoting universalization and implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty, with a special focus on compliance issues. 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 has attended all Mine Ban Treaty Meetings of States Parties and intersessional meetings, but has not served in a leadership role within the treaty since 2003.

France attended the treaty’s Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014. More recently, France attended the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November 2018 and the intersessional meetings in May 2019. At the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties, France expressed concern over systematic funding issues within the convention, and encouraged states to meet their full financial contribution obligations.[1]

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

Production, transfer, stockpiling, and use

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.[2] Since 2011, France has not consumed any of the mines retained for training and research.

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.