France has banned unsolicited telemarketing calls. From August 11th on telephone identification becomes illegal in principle: companies will only be able to contact a consumer if he or she has first given explicit consent, or if there is already an ongoing contractual relationship.
Regime change is based onarticle 13 of law n° 2025-594approved by the National Assembly and Senate on 30 June 2025 and promulgated by President Emmanuel Macron, integrated by implementing decree n° 2026-662 of 23 July 2026. Up to now the French system worked in reverse: those who did not want to receive commercial calls had to register on your own initiative in the Bloctel register. From Tuesday that logic is reversed and Bloctel ceases to exist: the consumer’s silence no longer authorizes any calls.
Crackdown on telemarketing in France: a “positive act” will be needed
To contact a customer you will need a “clear positive act”: a box to tick, not a hidden clause in a contract. The consent collected is valid for a maximum of one year, without automatic renewal, and can be withdrawn at any time, even verbally during the phone call itself.
Two gaps remain. Companies that already have a current contract with the customer, a telephone operator, an insurer, an energy supplier, will still be able to call back to propose complementary offers linked to the service already subscribed to. The telephone sale of newspapers and periodicals also survives. Outside of these cases, the only way to knock on a Frenchman’s phone remains ask permission first.
The text also establishes the permitted times for authorized calls: from Monday to Friday, from 10am to 1pm and from 2pm to 8pm, unless explicit consent indicates different time slots. The government has published the details of the reform on the service-public.gouv.fr portal, which remains the official reference for citizens and businesses.
The sanctions designed to discourage cold calling diehards are not symbolic. Anyone who calls without authorization risks a fine of up to 75,000 euros per call if he acts as a natural person, which rises to 375,000 euros per call in the case of a company. A contract signed over the telephone in violation of the new rules is simply null and void: the consumer is not bound by any purchase concluded outside the law.
Violations may be reported through the platform Signal Consomanaged by the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and the Repression of Fraud (DGCCRF), the body that will monitor the application of the new regime. The question now is: will companies in the sector, accustomed for years to a market where silence was worth consensus, really be able to adapt to a rule that reverses the burden of proof? From now on it is up to them to demonstrate that they have permission, no longer up to the consumer to demonstrate that they have denied it.
