The S.U.R.E. bill: A far-reaching reform of the French criminal justice system

The provision attracting the most debate is that set out in Article 9 of the bill: the creation of a guilty plea procedure extended, for the first time, to criminal offences.

Under current French law, the most serious offences (crimes) are subject to a particularly protective procedural framework, including a full judicial investigation conducted by an independent investigating judge, followed by trial before a criminal court, either a jury court (cour d'assises) or a Departmental Criminal Court (cour criminelle départementale).

The proposed reform does not remove these safeguards but introduces, at the end of the investigation, the possibility of a negotiated resolution where the accused acknowledges the facts

The analogy with plea bargaining in common law systems is plain. What Article 9 proposes draws on that model, while remaining firmly rooted in French legal logic: where an accused acknowledges the facts at the conclusion of a judicial investigation, the prosecutor may propose a sentence not exceeding two-thirds of the maximum applicable penalty, capped at 30 years for offences carrying a potential life sentence, subject to judicial approval and paired with a restorative justice process.

However, a number of offences are expressly excluded from its scope: crimes against humanity, war crimes, terrorist offences, cases falling within the jurisdiction of specially composed courts (such as those involving judges or members of parliament), proceedings involving multiple co-defendants or accomplices referred to the same criminal court, and cases involving minors or individuals not criminally responsible. The Senate's judicial committee further expanded these exclusions to cover certain particularly serious sexual offences, including rape of a minor under 15, aggravated rape, and child prostitution.

The reform forms part of a broader trend in French criminal justice policy over the past decade, aimed at improving efficiency while maintaining procedural safeguards.

On the budgetary front, the investment has been substantial. The government has confirmed that 2026 alone will see an additional €200 million allocated to justice, alongside 1,600 new positions. These figures follow several years of progressive increases, though most observers agree that the judiciary remains significantly understaffed relative to the volume of cases it is expected to handle.

On the procedural front, notable milestones include the introduction of the Guilty Plea Procedure (Comparution sur Reconnaissance Préalable de Culpabilité, CRPC) for misdemeanours in 2004, the introduction of the Public Interest Judicial Agreement (Convention Judiciaire d'Intérêt Public, CJIP) in 2016, enabling negotiated settlements for legal entities only, and the generalisation of the Departmental Criminal Courts (Cours Criminelles Départementales, CCD) in 2022, which introduced panels of professional judges as an alternative to the traditional jury court (cour d'assises) for intermediate-level criminal offences.

While the CCD succeeded in reducing this practice by offering a viable alternative within the criminal track, they have in turn become subject to significant backlogs and have struggled to absorb the full volume of criminal cases in recent years. It is partly against this backdrop that the extension of the guilty plea procedure to criminal offences is now being proposed.

While these reforms have improved case processing in certain areas, they have also contributed to ongoing debates regarding the balance between efficiency and procedural guarantees.

Criticisms and safeguards

The proposed extension of a guilty plea mechanism to criminal offences has prompted significant debate among legal practitioners and institutional stakeholders, including marked opposition from the legal profession.

French bar associations have expressed their concerns through public statements and collective action, including a nationwide strike day on 13 April 2026 (“journée de justice morte”), coinciding with the examination of the bill before the Senate.

Three main concerns are generally put forward. First, questions relate to the conditions under which an accused person may consent to a negotiated sentence in relation to the most serious offences, given the potential severity of the penalties involved. Second, critics argue that the procedure risks marginalising victims, who would no longer have the opportunity to be heard in open court and whose role in the process would be reduced to a mere right of opposition. Third, some practitioners consider that delays in criminal proceedings primarily arise during the investigation phase, which the bill does not directly address, thereby potentially limiting the impact of the reform on overall case processing times.

At the same time, the draft text incorporates a number of safeguards intended to preserve the fundamental guarantees applicable to criminal matters. The procedure would only be available following a full judicial investigation, conducted under the supervision of an independent investigating judge. It would require a voluntary acknowledgment of the facts by the accused, and the victim would retain the right to oppose its application. In addition, the proposed sentence would be capped at two-thirds of the maximum applicable penalty and at 30 years for offences carrying a potential life sentence and would remain subject to approval by a judge. The procedure would also be combined with a restorative justice component, reflecting an intention to distinguish it from purely negotiated settlement mechanisms. Finally, a significant category of offences would be expressly excluded from the scope of the procedure. Following the Senate debates, and in what appears to be a response to the opposition expressed by the legal profession, the Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin announced an expansion of these exclusions, adding a number of particularly serious sexual offences to the list of crimes for which the procedure would remain unavailable.

Beyond the flagship measure, several provisions aim at strengthening the effective enforcement of sentences:

• Abolition of sentence waivers and postponements (Article 1): every offence will henceforth systematically result in the pronouncement of a sentence.
• Restricting suspended sentences to first-time offenders (Article 2): the sursis simple will be reserved exclusively for individuals with a clean criminal record, with automatic revocation upon commission of a further offence.
• Ending mandatory pre-execution sentence adjustments (Article 3): the sentence pronounced is the sentence served, unless the sentencing court itself expressly decides otherwise.
• Reinstating "ultra-short" custodial sentences (Article 4): judges regain the ability to impose sentences of less than one month, reducing the perverse incentive to inflate sentence lengths artificially.
• Strengthening enforcement mechanisms (Articles 5 and 6): generalised remand warrants irrespective of sentence length, and automatic incarceration in the event of non-payment of the jour-amende (daily fine unit).
• Overhaul of the sentencing scale (Article 8): an ordonnance power is sought to reduce the current 235 available penalties to four categories (imprisonment, financial sanction, probation, and prohibitions/obligations), each with minimum thresholds.