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

Information is an essential element in the protection of consumer rights. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union expressly mentions the protection of economic interests and the promotion of the consumer's right to information as one of the objectives that the Union rules must achieve . Thus, Directive No 2011/83 of 25 October 2011, which repeals and replaces Directive 97/7, has placed …

Formation of contract

Information is an essential element in the protection of consumer rights. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union expressly mentions the protection of economic interests and the promotion of the consumer's right to information as one of the objectives that the Union rules must achieve . Thus, Directive No 2011/83 of 25 October 2011, which repeals and replaces Directive 97/7, has placed consumer information at the heart of its provisions and imposes full harmonization in this respect.

In the area of distance selling, prior information to the consumer is an essential condition for the validity of the contract. Indeed, the consumer must be able to fully understand the main elements of the contract in order to make an informed decision about whether to contract. The consumer information obligation can be divided into two stages; before and after the conclusion of the contract.

Under Article L. 221-5 of the Consumer Code, "prior to the conclusion of a contract of sale or for the provision of services, the professional must communicate to the consumer, in a legible and comprehensible manner":

1° The essential characteristics of the good or service, the digital content or the digital service . 

2° The price in application of Articles L. 112-1 to L. 112-4.

3° The date on which or the time-limit within which the professional commits to deliver the good or provide the service, the digital content or the digital service. 

4° Information  relating to its identity, its postal, telephone and electronic contact details, cancellation procedures, methods of settling disputes, other contractual terms and conditions and, where applicable, the costs of using the distance communication methods, the existence of codes of good conduct and deposits and financial guarantees.

5°  Where applicable, information regarding legal guarantees, functionality, compatibility and interoperability of the digital content, digital service or product with digital elements, other contractual terms and conditions and, where applicable, the existence of any software installation restrictions. 

6° The possibility of resorting to a consumer mediator under the conditions provided for in Title I of Book VI. 

7° When the right of withdrawal exists , the conditions, time-limits and procedures for the exercise of this right and the standard withdrawal form, the conditions, time-limit and means of exercising this right, as well as the standard withdrawal form, the conditions of presentation and the information it contains, are laid down by decree approved by the Council of State. 

8° Where appropriate, the fact that the consumer bears the costs of returning the goods in the event of withdrawal and, in the case of distance contracts, the cost of returning the goods, when they cannot normally be returned by post.

9° Information on the consumer's obligation to pay costs  when he exercises his right of withdrawal from a service contract  whose performance he expressly requested before the end of the withdrawal period; this fee is calculated in accordance with the procedures laid down in Article L. 221-25.

10°  When the right of withdrawal cannot be exercised under Article L. 221-28 , information to the effects that the consumer does not benefit from this right or, where appropriate, the circumstances in which the consumer loses the right of withdrawal.

11° The application of a customized price based on automated decision making, if applicable.

The list and content of that information are specified by decree approved by the Council of State. The contract must be accompanied by a standard withdrawal form, a model of which is proposed in the annex to Article R. 221-1 of the Consumer Code.

12° In the case of a sale by public auction as defined by the first paragraph of Article L. 321-3 of the Commercial Code, information relating to the identity and postal address, telephone and electronic contact details of the professional provided for in part 4° of section I of that article may be replaced by those of the representative.

Under the terms of II of Article L. 221-5, the professional must also provide, before the conclusion of a contract for the provision of services and, where there is no contract, before the provision of services, the additional information required by Article L. 111-2.

Information provided by the professional is not sufficiently comprehensible, as required by Article L. 221-1, when the use of a magnifying glass is required to read the characters used, due to their very small size . Similarly, advertising brochures provide consumers with fragmented information on the tariffs actually applied when they do not specify the address of the professional's headquarters, the period of validity of the offers or the existence of the right of withdrawal, or because of their location and the typeface used, on the exact nature of the parties' commitments . Lastly, the advertisement published on a website which does not contain any of the required information, in particular the terms for concluding the sale, payment of the price and delivery of the goods or the right of withdrawal, is not a valid offer but an advertisement and a proposal for negotiation .

In order to adapt the obligation to provide legible information to the constraints of the new modes of communication used in distance selling, Article L. 221-12 now provides, when a communication technique imposes space or time constraints on the presentation of information: initially, the provision of pre-contractual information on the main characteristics of the goods or services, the identity of the professional, the total price, the right of withdrawal, the duration of the contract and, in the case of contracts of indefinite duration, the terms for terminating the contract; secondly, in a suitable form, the remaining mandatory information. Thus, where a service is provided by telephone, before the consumer can accept the contract and the performance of the service, he must be directly informed of the existence of a right of withdrawal and of the loss of that right if immediate performance of the service is demanded .

When the sale takes place online and requires immediate payment, it is subject to special conditions: in addition to the obligation to provide clear and apparent information before placing an order, the professional must ensure to expressly inform the customer that his action implies an obligation to pay . Article L. 221-14  of the Consumer Code stipulates that “to this end, the function used by the consumer to validate his order entails, subject to nullity, the clear and legible indication: order with an obligation to pay or a similar formula, which is unambiguous, indicating that the placing of an order makes its payment obligatory”. The online sales site must also at this stage inform the consumer of any possible restrictions on delivery and the means of payment accepted.

Directive No 97/7 of May 20, 1997 and former Article L. 121-19 of the Consumer Code in its version prior to the Law of 17 March 2014 required a confirmation of the offer. These texts provided that the confirmation be made either by the delivery of a written document or any other durable medium . This requirement of confirmation of the offer on a durable medium is maintained in the new law. Article L. 221-13 requires the professional to provide the consumer, on a durable medium and within a reasonable period, after the conclusion of the contract and no later than at the time of delivery of the good or before the performance of the service, or the contract for the provision of digital content or services, with confirmation of the contract containing all the information referred to in Article L. 221-5, unless the professional has already provided it to him on a durable medium, before the conclusion of the contract. The contract must be accompanied by a standard withdrawal form, a model of which is proposed in the annex to Article R. 221-1 of the Consumer Code, inserted by Decree No 2014-1061 of 17 September 2014.

Under the introductory section of the Consumer Code, as supplemented by Ordinance No 2021-1730 of 22 December 2021 , a durable medium is “any instrument which enables the consumer or the professional to store information addressed personally to him in a way accessible for future reference for a period of time adequate for the purposes of the information and which allows the unchanged reproduction of the information stored” . A simple web page does not constitute a durable medium , since the website does not guarantee the consumer in a way equivalent to a paper medium, the possession of this information which excludes any possibility of unilateral modification on the part of the seller . However, a letter, even if not dated, sent to the consumer recalling the purchase of an internet subscription, and the invoices sent to him and which have been paid, validly confirm the distance offer . The signature by the consumer on a paper contract is not required .

 If the consumer does not have the goods in front of him and cannot seek advice from the seller, the product must be described as precisely as possible in all its qualitative and quantitative elements. The description must concern the characteristics and components of the article (in particular in the methods and recommendations for its use): TGI Paris, 4 February 2003, LawLex200300001098JBJ.

 CA Paris, 16 March 2017, LawLex201700000574JBJ.

  Directive No 2011/83, Article 8(2): "If placing an order entails activating a button or a similar function, the button or similar function shall be labelled in an easily legible manner only with the words "order with obligation to pay" or a corresponding unambiguous formulation indicating that placing the order entails an obligation to pay the trader. If the trader has not complied with this subparagraph, the consumer shall not be bound by the contract or order".

For an application, see CA Angers, 13 March 2012, LawLex201200001375JBJ.

The preliminary article, 8° of the Consumer Code reiterates the definition of durable medium previously included in Article L. 221-1.

Recital 23 of Directive No 2011/83 indicatively refers to USB sticks, CD-ROMs, DVDs, memory cards, the hard disks of computers and emails.

 CA Rennes, 3 April 2009, LawLex201200001456JBJ.

 Case C-49/11 Content services Ltd, Judgment of 5 July 2012, LawLex201700001302JBJ.

 CA Lyon, 26 July 2018, LawLex201800001214JBJ.

Article R. 221-2 lists the information required from the professional pursuant to 4°, 5° and 6° of Article L. 221-5.

Consumer Code, Art. R. 221-3: "The information relating to the right of withdrawal mentioned in 7°, 8° and 9° of Article L. 221-5 may be provided by means of the standard information notice duly completed and annexed to this code".

 These costs are calculated in accordance with Article L. 221-25 (former Article L. 121-21-5).

 Including the supply of water, gas or electricity and subscription to a district heating network.

 Article L. 221-28 lists the contracts excluded from the right of withdrawal.

 See CA Aix-en-Provence, 30 April 2008, LawLex201200001358JBJ.

 Cass. crim., 15 December 2009, LawLex201200000741JBJ.

 CA Toulouse, 2 February 2011, LawLex201200001631JBJ.

French Consumer Law

444. Formation of contract

Demandez un accès gratuit
au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise

Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

444. Formation of contract

Demandez un accès gratuit au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise

Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

Demandez un accès gratuit
au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise