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

Originally, price advertising practices were subject to a series of orders made on the grounds of Ordinance No 45-1483 of 30 June 1945, which introduced the freezing and taxation of prices, under penalty of criminal sanctions. This text, which allowed the Administration to intervene at any time and in all economic sectors to fix prices and change them, was repealed by Ordinance No 86-1243 of 1 Dec …

Former Order of 11 March 2015

Originally, price advertising practices were subject to a series of orders made on the grounds of Ordinance No 45-1483 of 30 June 1945, which introduced the freezing and taxation of prices, under penalty of criminal sanctions. This text, which allowed the Administration to intervene at any time and in all economic sectors to fix prices and change them, was repealed by Ordinance No 86-1243 of 1 December 1986, codified in Articles L. 410-1 et seq. of the Commercial Code , which affirmed the freedom of prices of products and services.

When the Ordinance of 1945 was repealed, the question was raised of the correlative disappearance of its implementing texts, in particular of Order No 77-105/P of 2 September 1977 concerning price reduction announcements. On four occasions, the Court of Cassation replied in the negative, considering that the orders or regulations legally adopted by the competent authority are of a permanent nature which means that they survive the laws they implement, for as long as they have not been rescinded or have not become irreconcilable with the rules laid down by new legislation . Furthermore, Article 33 of Decree No 86-1309 of 29 December 1986, implementing the Ordinance of 1986, continued to refer to the texts implementing the Ordinance of 1945. Most trial courts aligned themselves with the position of the Court of Cassation , until the codification of Article 33 of the Decree of 29 December 1986 in Article R. 113-1 of the Consumer Code, now repealed . The Dijon Court of Appeal, noting that the Order of 1977 no longer appeared in the texts appended to the Consumer Code and that Article R. 113-1 did not include the reference to the decrees implementing the Ordinance of 1945, concluded that the violation of the Order of 2 September 1977 was no longer sanctioned . This clumsy drafting (and codification) was then rectified by Decree No 99-513 of 16 June 1999 which restored within Article R. 113-1 of the Consumer Code the mention of the orders “implementing Ordinance No 45-1483 of 30 June 1945”. The Order of 2 September 1977 thus remained in force , until its repeal by the Order of 31 December 2008 , repealed by the Order of 11 March 2015 and most recently by an order of 28 October 2022 . 

 Codification Ordinance No 2000-912 of 18 September 2000 on the Legislative part of the Commercial Code. 

 See Cass. crim., 12 January 1994, LawLex200300003704JBJ; 2 March 1994, LawLex200300003705JBJ; 26 May 1994, LawLex200300004010JBJ; 20 December 1995, LawLex200300003710JBJ.

 CA Grenoble, 17 December 1999, LawLex200300004546JBJ: the Order of 2 September 1977, implementing the Ordinance of 30 June 1945, survived the repeal of the latter by being immediately replaced by a text of the same value incorporating all or part of the old provisions; 19 January 2000, LawLex200300003755JBJ; CA Paris, 21 March 1995, LawLex200300004239JBJ.

 The text is not included in Decree No 2016-884 of 29 June 2016, which recodifies the regulatory part of the Consumer Code.

 CA Dijon, 23 September 1998, LawLex200300003920JBJ.

 See, inter alia Cass. com., 19 October 1999, LawLex200200000900JBJ.

Order of 28 October 2022 repealing and amending several orders, OJ 28 of 2 February 2023.

French Consumer Law

345. Former Order of 11 March 2015

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Les notions juridiques connexes

345. Former Order of 11 March 2015

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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