French Consumer Law is a comprehensive and comparative overview of French and EU law in this field, covering: advertising, unfair commercial practices, conditions for the validity of contracts, unfair terms, product conformity, latent defects, product safety.

French Consumer Law

Under Articles L. 621-7 (formerly L. 421-6) of the Consumer Code, authorized associations can sue in the civil courts to stop or prohibit any unlawful activity under the provisions transposing the directives listed in the annex to Directive No 2009/22 of 23 April 2009 or obtain, if appropriate subject to penalties, the removal of unlawful or unfair terms in any contract or standard agreement propo …

Conditions

Under Articles L. 621-7 (formerly L. 421-6) of the Consumer Code, authorized associations can sue in the civil courts to stop or prohibit any unlawful activity under the provisions transposing the directives listed in the annex to Directive No 2009/22 of 23 April 2009 or obtain, if appropriate subject to penalties, the removal of unlawful or unfair terms in any contract or standard agreement proposed to or intended for consumers .

Article L. 621-8, para. 1 (former Art. L. 421-6, para. 2) also provides that “when a matter is referred to it pursuant to Article L. 621-7, the court may,  subject to a penalty if necessary, order the removal of an unlawful or unfair term from any contract or type of contract proposed or intended for the consumer or from any contract in the course of its performance”. In accordance with paragraph 2 of this provision, “the associations and organizations specified in Article L. 621-7 may also ask the court to declare that this term be ‘deemed unwritten’ i.e void ab initio, in all identical contracts concluded by the same professional with consumers, and to order the professional to inform the consumers concerned at his own expense by all appropriate channels”.

Article L. 621-8 confers a right specific to consumer associations, the consequence of which are that:

- associations are not required to intervene in proceedings initiated by a consumer ; there is nothing however to prevent them from joining the proceedings ; 

- they may act independently of any individual action ;

- action is not subject to proof of individual injury . 

Unlike civil action under Article L. 621-1 (formerly L. 421-1), actions for injunction are not subject to the existence of a criminal offense. After much resistance by certain trial courts , the Court of Cassation laid down the principle according to which unlawful activities within the meaning of Articles L. 621-2 (formerly L. 421-2) and L. 621-8 of the Consumer Code, do not necessarily constitute a criminal offense . Recently, the Court of Cassation added that where a consumer association does not justify either the existence of an infringement or the disregard of a provision resulting from the transposition of Union law, it may not bring an action for injunction, prohibition or reparation of an unlawful act on the basis of Articles L. 621-1, L. 621-2 and L. 621-7 . 

Where the object of the action is the removal of unlawful or unfair terms, said terms must be in a contract offered to consumers. Although it is irrelevant whether the contract is intended for both traders and consumers , the action is inadmissible if, at the time of the court's ruling, the contract is only being proposed to traders . The Court of Cassation's solution has encountered opposition from the courts ruling on the merits which had equated non-professionals acting outside their normal business activity with consumers . To curtail that resistance, the first civil chamber clearly stated that an action for the removal of unfair terms laid down by the former Article L. 421-6 is limited to contracts intended or proposed only to consumers and does not extend to contracts with non-professional legal entities such as residential co-owners' associations . In effect, even if actions for the striking out of unfair terms are clearly related to Article L. 221-1 (formerly L. 132-1) of the Consumer Code which prohibits unfair clauses in contracts concluded between traders and “non-professionals” or consumers, its scope of application is not the same.

The scope of application of Article L. 621-8 is narrower since it only covers contracts with consumers, and does not refer to “non-professionals”. The situation can no longer give rise to doubts in light of the new definition of consumer introduced by the Hamon Law . According to the new introductory article of the Consumer Code, redrafted by the Ordinance of 14 March 2016 a non-professional is defined as “any natural person acting for purposes which do not fall within the context of its commercial, industrial, artisanal, self-employed professional or agricultural activity”.

In relation to environmental claims, see CA Paris, 20 March 2024, LawLex202400002621JBJ, ruling that the consumer association, as the proprietor of the rights to the cessation of an unfair commercial practice and to compensation for the resulting collective harm, pursuant to Article L. 621-7 of the Consumer Code, must act within a period of five years from the day on which it became aware or should have become aware of the misleading commercial practices denounced.

CA Colmar, 16 June 1995, LawLex200400000496JBJ.

TGI Laval, 22 October 2007, LawLex200800000197JBJ; CA Grenoble, 10 December 2012, LawLex201400001830JBJ.

Cass. 1re civ., 4 June 2014, LawLex201400000722JBJ; CA Grenoble, 14 October 2014, LawLex201400001156JBJ and LawLex201400001157JBJ; 19 January 2015, LawLex201500000123JBJ; 14 January 2016, LawLex201600000158JBJ, LawLex201600000159JBJ and LawLex201600000167JBJ. See also Cass. 1re civ., 1 June 2016, LawLex201600001091JBJ and LawLex201600001098JBJ.

Law 2014-344 of 17 March 2014, OJ of 18 March 2014, 5400.

Cass. 1re civ., 6 January 1994, LawLex200300001217JBJ, upholding CA Grenoble, 13 June 1991, LawLex200400000917JBJ. See also CA Lyon, 18 July 1991, LawLex200300002010JBJ; Cass. 1re civ., 13 March 1996, LawLex200300001224JBJ.

TGI Albertville, 17 June 1997, LawLex200400001462JBJ; CA Paris, 2 October 1998, LawLex200300002040JBJ.

CA Rennes, 28 January 2005, LawLex201400000279JBJ; 28 February 2014, LawLex201400001688JBJ.

CA Versailles, 2 June 1994, LawLex200300002015JBJ; TGI Nanterre, 17 March 1999, LawLex200300001879JBJ. 

Cass. 1re civ., 25 March 2010, LawLex201200001127JBJ. See also CA Angers, 17 May 2011, LawLex201400000258JBJ.

Cass. civ. 1re, 30 March 2022, LawLex202200001893JBJ: no cause of action, since the consumer association relied on the breach of the provisions of the Insurance Code relating to the obligation of building owners who are consumers to take out structural damage insurance, without pleading either the existence of an infringement or the breach of a provision transposing the directives mentioned in Article 1 of Directive No 2009/22.

CA Grenoble, 4 February 2002, LawLex200500005777JBJ.

Cass. 1re civ., 1 February 2005, LawLex200500004134JBJ. See also CA Paris, 5 July 2016, LawLex201600001287JBJ, holding that Article L. 421-6 (now L. 621-7) of the Consumer Code does not allow a consumer association to make an application for summary proceedings in disregard of the requirement of a manifestly unlawful disturbance at the day of judgment, laid down by Article 809 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In this case, between the date of the referral and the date of the judgment, the trader had revised its general terms and conditions henceforth imposing the disputed clause only on other traders, so that the “unlawful disturbance” was no longer present.

French Consumer Law

27. Conditions

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27. Conditions

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Les notions juridiques connexes

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