FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Diane Bandon-Tourret and Agathe Clarac, LexCase
1. Product Safety 1.1 Product Safety Legal Framework
A product is presumed to meet the general safety requirement if it complies with the specific EU or, subsidiarily, local regulations applicable to it for the protection of consumer health or safety. A list of standards has been published, compliance with which establishes a presumption of conformity with the gen - eral safety requirement, pursuant to an implementing decision (2026/901) of the European Commission. This decision applies only to certain products and is therefore fairly limited in scope. Failing this, reference may be made to national and international standards, voluntary certification systems and codes of good practice, and reasonable consumer expectations. In other cases, the safety of a product is assessed by taking into account the following elements in particu - lar, when they exist: • non-mandatory national standards transposing European standards applicable to the product, other than those whose reference is published in the Official Journal of the European Union in accordance with Article 10 (7) of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012; • voluntary certification schemes or similar third-par - ty conformity assessment frameworks, in particular those conceived to support Union law; • European Commission recommendations estab - lishing guidelines for product safety assessment; • national standards drawn up in the member state in which the product is made available; • the state of the art and technology, including the opinion of recognised scientific bodies and expert committees; • product safety codes of good practice in force in the sector concerned; • reasonable consumer expectations concerning safety; and • safety requirements adopted in accordance with Commission acts determining the specific safety requirement to be covered by European standards. In the area of liability, Council Directive 85/374/EEC of 25 July 1985 on the approximation of the laws, regu - lations and administrative provisions of the member states concerning liability for defective products was • international standards; • international agreements;
In France, product safety is governed by several regu - lations, depending on the nature of the products and their intended use, as well as by general or sector- specific legislation. Consumer law, understood as all the legal and regulatory provisions designed to protect the consumer (any natural person acting for purposes that do not fall within the scope of their commercial, industrial, craft, liberal or agricultural activity) has been particularly developed under the influence of EU law. The Consumer Code has been comprehensively over - hauled, to make the texts easier to read and the regu - lations more accessible, by the Order of 14 March 2016 for the legislative part and the Decree of 29 June 2016 for the regulatory part. It is now divided into eight books dealing with: • consumer information and commercial practices; • the formation and performance of contracts; • credit; • the conformity and safety of products and services; • powers of investigation and follow-up to inspec - tions; • dispute resolution; • the handling of over-indebtedness; and • approved consumer protection associations and consumer institutions. The Code is regularly the subject of reform. The new European Regulation (EU) 2023/988 of 10 May 2023 on general product safety (hereinafter the GPSR), published 13 days later, came into force in France on 13 December 2024. This new key instru - ment on product safety replaces the General Product Safety Directive (Directive 2001/95/EC of 3 December 2001 on general product safety) and the Directive on products intended to be foodstuffs (87/357/EEC). The GPSR imposes a general safety obligation. Only safe products (ie, products that do not present any risk or only acceptable minimal risks under normal conditions of use) may be made available on the EU market, with any unsafe product being presumed to be dangerous.
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