France is currently facing scrutiny regarding its position on an international arrest warrant issued for Israel‘s prime minister. On Thursday, the French government refrained from commenting on whether it would consider arresting Russian President Vladimir Putin under a similar warrant.

Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense chief, and a Hamas military leader, citing alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict in Gaza.

All member states of the European Union, including France, are signatories to the ICC’s founding treaty. However, France stated on Wednesday that it believes Netanyahu enjoys immunity from ICC actions, as Israel has not ratified the court’s statutes.

The ICC has also issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of the war crime of unlawfully deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine, despite Russia not being a signatory to the ICC’s founding treaty.

French foreign ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine indicated on Thursday that France’s legal stance regarding the arrest warrants for both Putin and Netanyahu is fundamentally the same. “We may have been less explicit in our comments on Putin’s situation compared to the current one, but our position remains consistent,” Lemoine informed reporters. When asked if this implied that France would not detain Putin should he enter the country, he responded, “Regarding Vladimir Putin and all individuals who have committed crimes, there is no impunity. They must be held accountable for their actions, and we have consistently stated that we will uphold international law in all its dimensions.”

He stated that the matter of immunity, which he described as being embedded in the statutes of the ICC, is “complex” and that countries occasionally hold varying perspectives on this topic.