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

The warranty against latent defects is one of the oldest institutions of law and has existed since the Curule Aediles of Roman law protected the buyer in the sale of slaves or animals. The scope of the guarantee then continued to expand during the Middles Ages and up to its introduction into the Civil Code of 1804 in Articles 1641 to 1649. In post-revolutionary French law, the warranty against latent defects is conceived as a supplement to the guarantee of peaceful enjoyment and the obligation to deliver. Unlike the guarantee of conformity, the concept has not been regulated by Union law, which is why it has not been incorporated into the Consumer Code.

Although wider in scope as it also applies to sales between professionals or between individuals, the warranty against latent defects has characteristics in common with the rules protecting consumers. In effect, the Civil Code is severe with regard to the professional, presuming bad faith on its part when acting as seller and affording it less protection when acting as  buyer in the same field of specialty as the seller. This severity with regard to the professional is further reinforced by the provisions of consumer law: while Article 1643 of the Civil Code authorizes non-guarantee clauses, Article R. 212-1, 6° (former Article R. 132-1, 6°) of the Consumer Code declares them to be irrefutably unfair when they are enforced against the consumer.

The system put in place by the Civil Code implies the existence of a defect prior to the sale, non-apparent, which renders the thing unfit for its intended purpose. There are three types of action available at the discretion of the buyer, which must be brought within a period of two years: i) action for rescission ("action rédhibitoire") leading to the cancellation of the sale, ii) action for a reduction in the price due to the defect ("action estimatoire") or iii) action for damages (action en dommages et intérêts), which may be brought independently of the other actions. The damages action can nevertheless be paralyzed in the event of a non-guarantee clause, which must comply with certain conditions.

580. Concept