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

Article L. 111-1, 2° of the Consumer Code, in its latest version now expressly provides that at the pre-contractual stage, the professional must communicate to the consumer, in a legible and understandable way , “the price or any other benefit provided instead of or in addition to the payment of a price pursuant to Articles L. 112-1 to L. 112-4-1” .
1)  Price and terms of sale
According to Article …

Information on prices and terms of sale

Article L. 111-1, 2° of the Consumer Code, in its latest version now expressly provides that at the pre-contractual stage, the professional must communicate to the consumer, in a legible and understandable way , “the price or any other benefit provided instead of or in addition to the payment of a price pursuant to Articles L. 112-1 to L. 112-4-1” .

According to Article L. 112-1 , “any seller of a product or any provider of services must, by marking, labeling, display or any other appropriate means, inform the consumer of the prices and special conditions of sale and performance of services, according to the terms laid down by orders of the Minister of the Economy, after consultation of the National Consumer Council”. According to EU law, the selling price, as the definitive price, must automatically include the unavoidable and foreseeable elements of that price, which must be borne by the consumer and constitute the financial consideration for the purchase of the product concerned. However, the amount of the deposit which the consumer is required to pay when purchasing a product packaged in a returnable container does not constitute an element of the selling price within the meaning of Article 2(a) of Directive No 98/6 .

New Article L. 112-1-1  now governs price reduction advertisements - which were previously governed by the Order of 11 March 2015 , which replaced the Order of 31 December 2008  - with the objective of combating price reduction announcements calculated on the basis of inflated reference prices which affect the consumer's ability to be properly informed about the reality of the promotion. In this respect, the new article requires a displaying of the previous price charged by the professional before the price reduction is applied. This reference price must correspond to the lowest price charged to all consumers during a period of thirty days preceding the promotion. Exceptions are provided for. First, in the case of successive announcements, during a given period, the reference price is the same as the one indicated before the first price reduction announcement. Second, these provisions do not apply to price reduction announcements for products that are likely to deteriorate or expire quickly. They also do not apply to price comparisons between professionals. Failure to comply with these provisions constitutes a misleading commercial practice within the meaning of Article L. 121-2.

The scope of the information on prices and terms of sale is very broad, since it applies, in accordance with Article L. 112-2 , “to all production, distribution and service activities, including those carried out by public bodies, in particular under public service delegation agreements”.

However, the text only concerns relations between a consumer and a professional seller. The Court of Cassation has specified that the obligation of information on the price of software when buying a computer lies not with the manufacturer, but with the seller . Article L. 112-1 does not specifically refer to the pre-contractual stage. Even though before the Hamon Law, the courts ensured that this provision was respected before the contract was signed . Therefore, under Article L. 112-1 of the Consumer Code, the optician who fails, contrary to the requirements of the Order of  23 July 1996, to systematically provide the consumer with a free estimate prior to the conclusion of the sale , breaches the obligation to provide information. Similarly, the fact that a consumer who wishes to send a letter or package is unable to read the carrier's general conditions of sale, constitutes a manifestly unlawful disorder .

Under Article L. 112-3, if the price cannot be calculated in advance because of the nature of the good or service, the professional must indicate the method of calculating the price and, where applicable, any additional charges for transportation, delivery or postage and any other charges. If the additional costs cannot reasonably be calculated in advance, it must state that they may be payable. In the case of a contract of indefinite duration or with a subscription, Article L. 112-4 provides that “the total price includes the total costs incurred for each billing period. When such contracts are invoiced at a fixed rate, the total price also includes the total of the monthly costs. Where the total cost cannot be reasonably calculated in advance, the method of calculating the price shall be communicated.” In accordance with this principle of price transparency, Article L. 121-16 also provides that the dedicated telephone number, enabling the consumer to obtain the proper performance of the contract he has concluded with a professional or the processing of his claims, must be stated in the contract and correspondence, and that it can under no circumstances be surcharged. In the case of a contract for the sale of goods or the supply of digital content or services which does not provide for the payment of a price, new Article L. 112-4-1  now provides that the professional must specify the nature of the benefit provided by the consumer within the meaning of Articles L. 217-1  and L. 224-25-2 .

In order to reduce the legal uncertainty sometimes faced by professionals confronted by difficulties in interpreting texts with regard to consumer information on prices, Ordinance No 2015-1628 of 10 December 2015  inserted Article L. 113-3-3 (now Article L. 112-5). Now, “any professional may ask the administrative authority responsible for competition and consumer affairs to formally take a position on compliance with Articles L. 112-1 to L. 112-4 and the regulatory measures implementing them, of the modalities of the consumer information on prices it plans to put in place”. This position , to be taken within a time-limit set by decree approved by the Council of State, protects the professional against any change in the Administration's assessment exposing it to the administrative sanction provided for in Article L. 131-5. However, when its situation is no longer identical to the one presented at the time of its request or in the event of a change in the regulations or if the Administration notifies a change of assessment, the guarantee ends .

More specifically, with respect to the terms of sale, Article L. 112-7 provides that any operator of a voice communications service “is required to offer the consumer, when subscribing to a voice communications service, an offer in which calls from the network to which the consumer has been connected by his operator and to the national territory are billed by the second, from the first second, excluding any fixed connection cost”, knowing that “the accounting of calls is the subject of clear information prior to any subscription to the service, whatever the method of payment chosen. However, consumers who have opted for a prepaid payment method are billed by the second, unless they ask to take advantage of another billing method offered by the operator .

Article L. 112-8, resulting from the Law for a Digital Republic, requires undertakings with a turnover above a threshold defined by decree, to provide a telephone number dedicated to receiving a consumer's call for the proper performance of a contract concluded with a professional or the processing of a complaint, accessible to deaf, hard-of-hearing, deaf/blind and aphasic persons by providing a simultaneous written and visual translation service at no additional cost to end users and at the expense of the undertakings concerned.

Finally, new Article L. 112-9, resulting from Law No 2020-105 of 10 February 2020 on the fight against waste and the circular economy  provides that “retail businesses with a sales area of more than 400 square meters shall ensure that clean reusable or reusable containers, replacing single-use packaging, are made available to the end consumer, free of charge or for a fee, in connection with the sale of products presented without packaging.”

The Consumer Code now contains provisions, directly resulting from the transposition of Article 22 of Directive No 2011/83 , aimed at combating the practice called “pre-checking”. Previously placed within the provisions relating to consumer information, since Recodification Ordinance No 2016-301, they have been included in prohibited commercial practices. Article L. 121-17 (former Article L. 114-1) of the Consumer Code  provides that “prior to the conclusion of a contract of sale or for the provision of services, the professional must ensure the express consent of the consumer for any additional payment that may be added to the price of the principal object of the contract. In the event that the additional payment results from the consent of the consumer given by default, i.e. in the absence of any express objection on his part to paid options he has not requested, the consumer may claim reimbursement of the amounts paid in respect of such additional payment”. 

Cass. com., 14 November 2018, LawLex201800001754JBJ, LawLex201800001746JBJ and LawLex201800001755JBJ: the signing, on the public highway, by a consumer whose vehicle is involved in a traffic accident, of a work order containing the words “ having seen and accepted the general terms and conditions reproduced on the reverse side and the rate communicated to me ” is not sufficient to establish that the service provider in charge of cleaning the roadway communicated its rates in a clear and understandable manner  prior to the signing of the work order, in accordance with the public policy requirements of Article L. 111-1 of the Consumer Code.

For an application see CA Paris, 7 December 2016, LawLex201600002104JBJ: the offer to publish the same obituary notice on two media, in a newspaper and online without that families having prior knowledge of the tariff conditions of obituary notices and the specific cost of the publication of the same announcement online and in the newspaper, with the cost of both only presented at reception of the invoice sent after publication, breaches the information obligation laid down in Article L. 111-1 of the Consumer Code.

 CA Rennes, 28 June 2000, LawLex200800001557JBJ.

 CA Grenoble, 4 October 2016, LawLex201600001702JBJ.

Established by Ordinance No 2021-1247 of 29 September 2021.

Article L. 217-1, paragraph 2, on the scope of the obligation of conformity in contracts for the sale of goods provides that “contracts under which the professional delivers goods and transfers ownership to a consumer and the consumer obtains any other benefit, instead of or in addition to the payment of a price, are treated as contracts of sale for the purposes of this chapter”.

Article L. 224-25-2 on the scope of the rules applicable to contracts for the provision of digital content and services provides that “the provisions of this section apply to any contract by which a professional, or any person presenting himself or acting as such, provides digital content and a digital service to the consumer, and the latter pays a price or obtains any other benefit instead of or in addition to the payment of a price”

 Relating to guarantees consisting in taking a formal position enforceable against the Administration on the application of a standard to the factual situation or the applicant's project, published in the OJ of 11 December 2015, 22852.

Pursuant to Article L. 112-5, the silence of the Administration at the end of this period constitutes rejection of the application.

 Consumer Code, Article L. 112-6 (former Article L. 133-3-3, III).

Article L. 112-7 does not apply to calls to numbers that may be subject to a premium rate.

In its version prior to the Hamon Law, former Article L. 113-3 provided for information on the prices, special conditions of sale and any limitations on the contractual liability. Any limitations on the contractual liability are no longer included, perhaps because of the referral made to Article L. 111-1 which only covers the pre-contractual stage.

Directive No 2011/83, Art. 22: “Before the consumer is bound by the contract or offer, the trader shall seek the express consent of the consumer to any extra payment in addition to the remuneration agreed upon for the trader's main contractual obligation. If the trader has not obtained the consumer's express consent but has inferred it by using default options which the consumer is required to reject in order to avoid the additional payment, the consumer shall be entitled to reimbursement of this payment.”

This article applies to contracts for the supply of water, gas or electricity, when they are not for a defined volume or quantity, as well as for district heating and digital content not supplied on a hardware medium.

CJEU Case C-543/21 Verband Sozialer Wettbewerb eV, Judgment of 29 June 2023, LawLex202300008633JBJ.

New Article L. 112-1-1 is derived from Ordinance No 2021-1734 of 22 December 2021 transposing Directive No 2019/2161 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 as regards the better enforcement and modernization of Union consumer protection rules, known as the “Omnibus Directive”.

Less restrictive than Article L.112-1-1, the Decree of 11 March 2015, in force until 28 May 2022, authorized the advertiser to freely determine the reference price provided that it could justify it and that the advertisement did not constitute an unfair commercial practice.

Repealed following a judgment by the Court of Justice (CJEU Case C-421/12 Commission v Belgium, Judgment of 10 July 2014) that found it to be contrary to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive No 2005/29, the 2008 order also required the advertiser to display the reference price, but offered several methods of determining the reference price including the manufacturer's or importer's recommended price, or the lowest price charged for a similar item during the last thirty days prior to the start of the advertising.

 Cass. 1re civ., 1 July 2015, LawLex201500000891JBJ.

TGI Nanterre, 2 September 2003, LawLex200400000457JBJ: the supplier who fails to provide its customers, when the contract is signed, with the price list used to determine the annual fee, even if it is available on request, breaches Article L. 112-1 of the Consumer Code.

French Consumer Law

394. Information on prices and terms of sale

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394. Information on prices and terms of sale

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