The current legal framework for the employment of French armed forces suffers from political and doctrinal weaknesses: political, because the refusal to recognise armed conflict situations for what they are is leading to excessive reference to ‘crises’, in which it is not possible in itself to justify the use of extended force; doctrinal, because it is clear that the French forces do not have any single and clear overall document for use by the command structure, in contrast to the British, for example. We need now to act at an institutional level and begin working on doctrine within the forces in order to go beyond the existing Article L 4123-12 II of the Defence Code, which allows for ad hoc exemption from criminal prosecution.