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

In the field known in France as economic law (droit économique), the sanction for unfair practices is justified both in the founding principle of contract law that requires that agreements be executed in good faith (Art. 1104 Civil Code) and in the theory of unfair competition, judge-made, which aims to ensure a balance between fairness and freedom of trade. The legislator intervened to complete this mechanism to protect the weaker party, the consumer, from certain business practices by traders, sometimes even to the detriment of freedom of trade and industry.

In consumer law, any business practice contrary to professional diligence and which materially distorts or is likely to materially distort the economic behavior of the consumer is regarded as unfair. That definition, taken from Article L. 121-1 (former Art. L. 120-1) of the Consumer Code, is based on Directive No 2005/29 according to which the concept of “unfair commercial practice” covers any omission, conduct, approach or commercial communication by a professional, that directly relates to the promotion, sale or supply of a product to consumers which has the dual characteristic of being contrary to the requirements of professional diligence and materially distorting or likely to materially distort the economic behavior of the average consumer .

 Combined reading of Articles 2(d) and 5(2) of Directive No 2005/29 of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market, OJEU L 149 of 11 June 2005.

110. Definition