France's online piracy programme has passed the 5 million milestone in warnings sent to alleged infringers.

That's according to latest figures published by the anti-piracy agency Hadopi, which has also shown a 267% increase year-on-year in referrals to the public prosecutor. In the first half of 2015, 169 people were referred, up from 46 in the same period last year.

Torrent Freak notes that France became one of the first users of the graduated response system back in 2010; the European country's three strikes rule has been criticised and adapted over the last five years, with Hadopi's Internet suspension measure dropped in 2013. More recently, France has turned to trying to cut off pirates' revenue sources.

Between September 2010 and June 2015, 4,897,883 initial warning notices were sent to French Internet account holders. That figure drops 90% for second warnings sent in the same period, to 482,667. Just 2,221 individuals reached the third warning stage over the near-five-year period.

However, figures published by NextInpact suggest that the number of notices sent out are only a fraction of total complaints filed by rights-holders. 37 million complaints are said to have been filed with Hadopi, which claims that around half of the 70,000 complaints submitted daily are being actioned.