France has banned unsolicited telemarketing phone calls, in what a consumer group is hailing as a "small revolution" for the sales industry. As of this week, unsolicited calls are prohibited for businesses in all sectors, with limited exceptions.
The law, backed by President Emmanuel Macron's government, came into force on Tuesday 11 August, according to Euronews. It replaces a system that let consumers opt out of marketing calls with one requiring companies to obtain permission before dialling in the first place.
From opt-out to opt-in
Previously, people who wanted to avoid marketing calls in France had to register their number with Bloctel, a government-run do-not-call list, but consumer groups said many call centres simply ignored it, according to NBC News, which cited reporting by the Associated Press. Under the new rules, that burden shifts from consumers to companies.
Calls will only be permitted if they relate to a contract a person has already entered into, or if the company has separately obtained the customer's prior consent to be contacted for marketing purposes. Authorities estimate that three-quarters of people in France get at least one unsolicited sales call every week, and many receive far more.
“"Businesses are prohibited from contacting consumers without their prior consent," said Alice Vilcot, chief of staff at France's Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control.”
Companies that breach the rules face substantial penalties. Fines can reach tens of thousands of euros for individual telemarketers and hundreds of thousands of euros for the companies that employ them, roughly equivalent to the $87,000 and $435,000 figures reported by US outlet FOX 5 Atlanta.
A long-fought consumer victory
Consumer advocacy group Que Choisir Ensemble welcomed the change. "It cannot be stressed enough that peace and quiet is a right, and it is time to stop exposing consumers to unwanted solicitations," the group said, according to the BBC.
The group's president, Marie-Amandine Stévenin, argued the problem extends well beyond the telephone. "This observation also holds true online and on the street, which are saturated with demands to consume," she said, adding that the ban marks "a victory for consumers."
Pressure had been building for some time. In 2024, eleven French consumer organisations issued a joint call for a ban, describing what NBC News reported as sustained frustration over persistent unwanted calls to both landlines and mobile phones.
Ripple effects beyond France
For international readers, the change is a reminder that Europe's approach to consumer protection increasingly favours explicit consent over opt-out registries, a model already familiar from data privacy rules such as the EU's ePrivacy framework. Britain, by contrast, still relies largely on its own Telephone Preference Service, a registry consumers must join to signal they do not want marketing calls, an opt-out approach similar to the one France has just abandoned.
The reform also has consequences beyond French borders. France has long been one of the largest markets for outsourced call centre work, much of it based in North Africa. Youssef Chraïbi, president of the Moroccan Outsourcing Services Federation, told the Moroccan daily Le Matin, as reported by Euronews, that the French market has historically accounted for more than 80% of the sector's revenue, raising concerns about jobs in Morocco's outsourcing industry as the volume of legally permitted calls shrinks.
How strictly the new rules will be enforced, and whether they curb unwanted calls in practice rather than simply on paper, will likely determine whether France's experiment becomes a model other European countries choose to follow.
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