Plea-bargaining in France

To raise the court-blockage resulted from lower efficiency, on the 9th Mar., 2004, the French legislators introduced the French-styled plea-bargaining into the criminal procedure, which has three features: limited application, faint sense of meet of minds and welled-improved protection mechanism. After 3 years’ experience, though having made some gains, plea-bargaining in France proves of no satisfactory application and its procedures should be further normalized. Also, in respect of its values and institutional conflicts, plea-bargaining in France has to take up another 5 challenges.