CALOMNIOUS DENUNCIATION
| Section 3: Slanderous denunciation |
| Article 226-10 |
| The denunciation, carried out by any means and directed against a specific person, of a fact which is likely to lead to judicial, administrative or disciplinary sanctions and which we know to be totally or partially inaccurate, when it is addressed either to a officer of justice or administrative or judicial police, either to an authority having the power to follow up on it or to seize the competent authority, or to hierarchical superiors or to the employer of the denounced person, is punished by five years of imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros.
The falsity of the fact denounced necessarily results from the decision, which has become final, of acquittal, discharge or dismissal declaring that the reality of the fact is not established or that it is not attributable to the person denounced. . In all other cases, the court hearing the proceedings against the whistleblower assesses the relevance of the accusations brought by the latter. |
| Article 226-11 |
| When the fact denounced has given rise to criminal proceedings, a ruling on the proceedings against the author of the denunciation can only be made after the decision definitively terminating the proceedings concerning the fact denounced. |
| Article 226-12 |
| Legal persons can be declared criminally responsible, under the conditions provided for in article 121-2, for the offense defined in article 226-10. The penalties incurred by legal persons are: 1 ° The fine, in accordance with the terms set out in article 131-38; 2 ° Prohibition, definitively or for a period of five years at most, from directly or indirectly exercising a professional or social activity in the exercise or on the occasion of the exercise of which the offense was committed; 3 ° The display or dissemination of the decision pronounced, under the conditions provided for by article 131-35. |
