The Act of 6 August 2004 on bioethics has amended the Civil Code and the Public Health Code.  Both Codes contain henceforth a comprehensive regulation regarding the examination of the genetic characteristics or the genetic testing of a person.  The first subsection of article L 1131-1 of the Public Health Code stipulates that “the examination of the genetic characteristics of a person or his identification by genetic fingerprints is regulated by the provisions of chapter III of title I of the first book of the Civil Code and by the provisions of this title, without prejudice to the provision of title II of this book (concerning biomedical research)” (italic by authors).  The phrasing “this title” used in article L 1131-1 refers to title II of the first book of the Public Health Code (legislative part) is entitled “Examination of the genetic features, genetic identification and genetic research”, whereas chapter III of the title I of the first book of the Civil Code is entitled “On the examination of the genetic characteristics of a person and on his identification by genetic fingerprints”.  The Decree No. 2008-321 added to the first chapter of title III of the regulatory part of the Public Health Code a new section.  This section is entitled “the examination of genetic features of a person and the identification by genetic fingerprints for medical purposes”.
As there are a lot of legal texts concerning the human genome, the whole regulation is comprehensive but also complex.

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