A public action in French law (french: action publique) is one carried out in the name of society against an by applying the

French penal code French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...

. It is taken in the name of society, in that its goal is to stop a disruption of the public order, and not to abate a done to a specific person. The action is taken by the Ministère public against the authors, co-authors or accomplices of an . The term ''public action'' is defined in Article 1 of the

. on Légifrance

Public action put in play

Subjects of a public action

The active subject of a public action is usually the ministère public, a hierarchical corps of magistrates charged with carrying out these actions. Alongside them, other civil servants are, for certain infractions, empowered to begin a public action, notably for

indirect taxes An indirect tax (such as sales tax, per unit tax, value added tax (VAT), or goods and services tax (GST), excise, consumption tax, tariff) is a tax that is levied upon goods and services before they reach the customer who ultimately pays the in ...

, bridges, roads, waters and forests. The requestor may also be the victim, if the requestor is a '' partie civile''. The passive subject is the author of the infraction, against whom the public action is brought. The defendants are the , authors, coauthors and accomplices of the . They must be identifiable, although not necessarily identified, for the public action to begin.

References

French criminal law {{France-law-stub