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

Contracts concluded off-premises, in accordance with the terminology used by Union law , or contracts concluded following doorstep selling, as they were referred to until recently by French law, mean contracts that the consumer concludes in places not in principle intended for sales. The practice, which represented a turnover of EUR 4.484 billion in 2018 , is characterized, according to the Commission, by the fact that “as a rule it is the trader who initiates the contract negotiations, for which the consumer is unprepared or which he does not expect (to the point that he is) often unable to compare the quality and price of the offer with other offers” . The element of surprise inherent in such a sales process and the impossibility for the consumer to compare the competing offers justifies that the professional gives him additional information and a right of withdrawal to enable him, for a certain period, to assess the obligations arising out of the contract and, if necessary, to be released from them.

In response to these concerns, the French legislator initially adopted Law No 72-1137 of 22 December 1972 on the protection of consumers in respect of doorstep selling and door-to-door sales . Then, since Directive No 85/577 of 20 December 1985  had intervened to harmonize national regulations, the 1972 Law was amended by Law No 89-421 of 23 June 1989 to bring it into line with the European text . The adoption of Directive No 2011/83 of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights , which repealed and replaced Directive No 85/577, required a major reform of the French system. The directive was transposed in France by Law No 2014-344 of 17 March 2014 on consumption, known as the Hamon Law . This law revised the plan of the Consumer Code to link the rules on solicitation rules with that of distance selling, in the same way as the presentation adopted by the directive, and qualified the practice of solicitation as a contract concluded off-premises. The global reform of the Consumer Code carried out by Ordinance No 2016-301 of 14 March 2016, which entered into force on 1 July 2016, led to a renumbering of the Articles relating to contracts concluded off-premises and to the dissociation of the rules of instituting the protection from those relating to the sanction . Finally, Directive No 2019-2161 of 27 November 2019 , which aims to strengthen consumer protection by introducing a system of dissuasive sanctions, has amended Directive No 2011/83 to allow Member States to extend the withdrawal period to 30 days.

  See Directive 85/577 of 20 December 1985 to protect the consumer in respect of contracts negotiated away from business premises, OJEC L 372 of 31 December 1985, 31 and Directive No 2011/83 of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights, OJEU L 304 of 22 November 2011, 64.

  Source: Fédération de la vente directe, www.fvd.fr.

  See the recitals of Directive No 85/577.

 L. 72-1137 of 22 December 1972, OJ 23 December 1972, 13348.

  Law No 89-421 of 23 June 1989 on information and protection of consumers and on various commercial practices, OJ 29 June 1989, 8047. The text was then codified in Articles L. 121-21 et seq. of the Consumer Code.

  Law No 2014-344 of 17 March 2014 on consumer affairs, OJ 18 March 2014, 5400.

  References to the former articles of the Consumer Code, in brackets, refer to the Articles of the Hamon Law, and not to their earlier version.

450. Definition and regulation