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

Law No 72-1137 of 22 December 1972, on the protection of consumers with regard to canvassing and door-to-door selling, intended to protect from the practices of canvassing individuals solicited at their home, and therefore in a position of greater vulnerability than when they decide by themselves to consumer. Although the title of the law used the term “consumer”, the text referred to the concept  …

Beneficiaries of protection

Law No 72-1137 of 22 December 1972, on the protection of consumers with regard to canvassing and door-to-door selling, intended to protect from the practices of canvassing individuals solicited at their home, and therefore in a position of greater vulnerability than when they decide by themselves to consumer. Although the title of the law used the term “consumer”, the text referred to the concept of “natural person”, which was maintained after the codification carried out by Law No 93-949 of 27 July 1993, even though Directive No 85/577 of 20 December 1985 established a distinction between consumers and professionals. It was thus considered that as former Article L. 121-21 of the Consumer Code contained no reference to the concept of consumer and/or professional, the protection was applicable to the natural person solicited in his capacity as a potential lessor .

The reference to the concept of natural person has de facto made it possible to exclude legal entities from the scope of the regulation. The Court of Cassation very early pointed out that the texts relating to canvassing were only intended to apply if the sales in question had been concluded with natural persons . However, some trial courts, by an a contrario reading of former Article L. 121-22, 4°, which excluded contracts directly related to the professional activity of the person solicited, tried to apply the rules of door-to-door selling to legal entities, by cancelling the contracts they had concluded, when they were unrelated to their activity . The Court of Cassation strongly condemned this interpretation . The trial courts  aligned themselves with this consistent position of the Court of Cassation , by refusing to apply the text to legal entities, even composed of two natural person partners , to associations , or even to works councils with civil personality .

The Hamon Law of 17 March 2014 , which fully aligns French law with Union law, adopts the terminology of Directive No 2011/83 of 25 October 2011 . Article L. 221-1 of the Consumer Code now limits the scope of the regulations only to contracts concluded “between a professional and a consumer”. The concept of consumer as defined in the new introductory article of the Consumer Code, which has transposed Article 2 (1) of the directive, adding agricultural activities to the list of areas concerned, although this was not intended by the directive. A consumer is now deemed to be a consumer covers “any natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, industry, craft, professional or agricultural activity”. In practice, the terminology used in the first Article should not significantly alter the scope of the rules of the Consumer Code, since case law already excluded contracts concluded by natural persons acting in direct relation with their professional activity. On the other hand, the fact that the property purchased off-premises allows the individual consumer to resell part of the electricity produced to EDF is not sufficient to set aside the protective provisions of the Consumer Code, since the purchase is aimed primarily at satisfying personal needs and reducing energy expenditure and does not specify any business purpose .

  CA Nîmes, 15 January 2008, LawLex201200001458JBJ.

  Cass. com., 8 March 1977, LawLex200300002782JBJ; Cass. crim., 15 March 1978, LawLex200300002704JBJ. See also Cass. 1re civ., 15 December 1998, LawLex200300002615JBJ.

Directive No 2011/83 of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights, OJEU L 304 of 22 November 2011, 64.

 Cass. 1re civ. 9 January 2019, LawLex201900000040JBJ; CA Poitiers, 15 December 2015, LawLex201500001838JBJ; CA Aix-en-Provence, 31 March 2016, LawLex201600000770JBJ;  CA Riom, 4 January 2017, LawLex201700000091JBJ; CA Grenoble, 15 May 2018, LawLex201800000738JBJ; cf. where the contract specifies that the buyer will not produce electricity for self-consumption but exclusively for resale to the operator, CA Nîmes, 29 September 2016, LawLex201600001674JBJ.

 CA Rennes, 17 September 1999, LawLex200400000077JBJ: canceling a maintenance contract concluded by a company operating a pizzeria, considering that it was not directly related to its catering business; a contrario, T. com. Paris, April 27, 1998, LawLex200300002605JBJ.

  Cass. 1re civ., 28 October 2003, LawLex200300004354JBJ.

 CA Lyon, 14 April 2000, LawLex200300002798JBJ; CA Colmar, 6 October 2008, LawLex201200001425JBJ; 24 October 2013, LawLex201400001901JBJ; CA Nîmes, 20 March 2014, LawLex201400001781JBJ; CA Paris, 25 February 2016, LawLex201600000499JBJ.

  In a judgment which appears to be specific, the Court of Cassation nevertheless retained the application of the legislation relating to canvassing to a farm association, a legal entity, but in special circumstances, since the farmer had been solicited at home, and the distinction between his personal commitments and those of the farm association are not very clear, see Cass. 1re civ., 6 January 1993, LawLex200300002828JBJ. For a similar decision, CA Toulouse, 12 May 1999, LawLex200300002596JBJ, holding that solicitation intended to have a legal entity subscribe to an advertising contract may fall under the regulation, when it is carried out at the home of the individual who represents it, who is in the same state of ignorance as any other consumer.

  CA Paris, 17 September 1999, LawLex200300002595JBJ.

  CA Paris, 7 November 2001, LawLex200300002961JBJ.

  CA Rennes, 18 October 2007, LawLex201200001443JBJ.

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

French Consumer Law

452. Beneficiaries of protection

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452. Beneficiaries of protection

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Sous parties

Les notions juridiques connexes

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au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise