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 scope of application  of the general safety requirement is particularly wide since, by its general wording, Article L. 421-3 (former Article L. 221-1, paragraph  1) of the Consumer Code allows any user of a product or service, consumer or professional, to invoke these provisions vis-à-vis the professional .

Some products and services are beyond the scope of the mechanism. Article L. 421-2 (former Article L. 221-1-1) expressly places outside the scope of the safety requirement:

-  second-hand products requiring repair or restoration prior to their use, when the supplier informs the person to whom it supplies the product of the need for such repair or restoration.

The courts have clarified the concept of “goods and services” referred to in Article L. 421-3. Thus, the ground, real estate property , or the editorial content of the maintenance manual of an aircraft , are not products within the meaning of the article. In ruling that Article L. 421-3 of the Consumer Code does not subject the operator of a store to a general results-based safety obligation with respect to customers, the Court of Cassation recently held that the notion of service within the meaning of that provision cannot include services that are accessory to the commercial offer, in particular the equipment for storing the products and presenting the marketed services, the physical reception of customers and their orientation by means of appropriate signage and lighting . In addition, medicinal products are excluded from the scope of Article L. 421-3 of the Consumer Code, insofar as they are defined and governed by the rules laid down in Articles L. 5111-1 et seq. of the Public Health Code .

2)  Persons bound by the general safety obligation

Under Article L. 421-3 of the Consumer Code, the general safety requirement is imposed on “the professional”. Article L. 421-4 specifies that “producers and distributors shall take all necessary measures to contribute to compliance with all the safety obligations provided for in this Title”. Article L. 421-1 simply includes the concepts of “producer” and “distributor” as defined by Union law .

-  the manufacturer of the product , when he is established in the Union, and any other person presenting himself as the manufacturer by affixing to the product his name, trade mark or other distinctive mark, or the person who reconditions the product;

-  the manufacturer's representative, when the manufacturer is not established in the Union or, if there is no representative established in the Union, the importer of the product ;

-  other professionals in the supply chain, insofar as their activities “may affect the safety properties of a product” .

A distributor is “any professional in the supply chain whose activity does not affect the safety properties of a product” .

3)  Persons to whom the general safety obligation is owed

Article L. 421-3 of the Consumer Code may be invoked by any user, whether a professional or not, of the product or service. The protection established by the text is not limited to consumers. The general safety requirement goes beyond the scope of consumer law and fits in a larger mechanism which forms product safety law .

 CA Montpellier, 27 February 2013, LawLex201300000828JBJ, holding that Article L. 421-3 of the Consumer Code on the principle of safety of services only concerns the professionals of the Consumer Code, meaning that it cannot be applicable to a dance teacher who is in no way a travel professional and who only enabled a few of his pupils to go to Africa to take part in a dance workshop, handling their accommodation, food and courses.

 CA Nancy, 24 November 2009, LawLex201300000920JBJ. See also CA Rennes, 5 February 2009, LawLex201300000916JBJ, stating that Article L. 421-3 of the Consumer Code is not applicable with regard to construction work.

 The user's status as a professional usually leads the courts to be less lenient than with lay users. For two examples within a contractual framework, see Cass. com., 4 March 2003, LawLex200600001098JBJ, holding that the professional buyer can only invoke the safety obligation of a professional seller if he was, at the time of the sale, in the same state of ignorance as a lay buyer; CA Douai, 7 March 2002, LawLex201300000994JBJ, finding the contributory fault of the professional user of the disputed ladder, when the latter, in this capacity, could not be unaware of the fact that a vertical deviation of 1.40 m instead of one meter at the most was a significant abnormality in the conditions of use of the ladder.

 CA Agen, 9 October 2007, LawLex200800001278JBJ.

Cass. civ. 1re, 24 November 2021, LawLex202200000817JBJ,

 CA Aix-en-Provence, 25 January 2012, LawLex201300000920JBJ; CA Paris, 2 March 2012, LawLex201300000909JBJ.

 See, for example, Cass. crim., 24 November 1999, LawLex200300003060JBJ, holding that the manufacturer of a centrifuge whose protective cover, in the absence of a locking system, flew off, did not breach the general safety requirement as the device in question complied with the regulations in force which did not require the installation of a locking system and as since the intervention of the Commission for Consumer Safety, it had modified the centrifuge and, by means of the press, had carried out a product recall campaign.

 CA Paris, 21 January 2011, LawLex201200001926JBJ: breach of its general safety obligation by the importer in France of the blow torch having caused the damage, who does not justify having carried out an analysis of the conformity of the product distributed under its brand with regard to the essential safety requirements. 

 See Cass. 2e civ., 4 November 2004, LawLex200600001455JBJ, retaining the liability, for breach of the general safety requirement, of the person responsible for the first placing on the market of the product concerned within the meaning of Article L. 421-1 and the successive sellers of said product on the grounds that although "special packaging and labeling requirements must be met and safety data sheets intended to inform the user of the properties and hazards of the product must be provided […], no one, from the manufacturer to the person responsible for placing on the market, the company Sigma Kalon, along with the various intermediaries, had been informed that the regulation had changed […]".

CA Paris, 26 November 2020, LawLex202000003327JBJ: the buyer of a defective charger does not establish the status of seller or supplier of the marketplace from which he made his purchase, since the terms and conditions of the Marketplace - which he necessarily validated to finalize his order and which are unambiguous on the role of intermediation between buyers and sellers of the latter - stipulate that the seller whose name is indicated in the description of each product is the co-contractor of the buyer.

650. Field of application