Derivatives and evolution of the principle of legality in French criminal law: contribution to the study of the sources of French criminal law

The rule of law is currently undergoing significant evolution in French penal law. The diversification of the sources of law puts into question the classical concept whereby the law, in the formal sense of the word, has been conferred with a monopoly when it comes to repression. The appearance and extraordinary development of international law, especially in European law, re-emerges in penal law. Not only does penal law yield to competition with other normative sources, it has even become an object of review on the part of internal judges and the European Court of Human Rights. The Court is inciting France to adopt a material conception of the rule of law that focuses no longer on the legitimacy of the body enacting the legal norm, but rather considers only the sufficient quality of its drafting. This evolution raises the question of the impact of this normative disorder on the coherence of the movement towards further penalization and the legitimacy of the right to punish.