The National Assembly has just voted a bill which could lead to the end of uncounted telephone canvassing. A revolutionary measure which should delight and relieve more than one consumer.
You have surely already found yourself in this situation. The phone rings, you answer and, at the end of the line, a salesperson offers you to take out an “advantageous” energy contract or pushes you to change your mobile operator. In this situation, either you have time to answer respectfully that you are not interested, or you hang up without bothering to say a word.
Telephone can be annoying, especially when it turns out to be abusive. Thus, since 2022, the State has taken measures and set the days and schedules during which calls are authorized. Therefore, you are able to be approached from Monday to Friday, except public holidays, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. In addition, the frequency of demarchages of the same consumer is limited to four times every 30 days, specifies The website of the Ministry of Economy. In 2023, the government set up other measures to limit inconvenience, in particular by prohibiting the use of numbers starting with 06 and 07 for canvassing, these prefixes being associated in the minds of people with mobile phones ( See our article).
But, despite this, the problem is far from being resolved. Fortunately, the National Assembly adopted unanimously, on Monday, January 27, 2025, a bill allowing to get rid of it definitively. The text stipulates that“It is forbidden to canvass telephone, directly or through a third party acting on his behalf, a consumer who has not expressed his consent beforehand to be the subject of commercial prospecting by this means.” An excellent advance! The bill will continue its legislative journey, and must now be examined in the Senate soon in order to be definitively adopted.
Prohibition of canvassing: consent to obtain
The voted provision had been introduced by an amendment by the environmental deputy Delphine Batho in the Committee on Economic Affairs and follows a bill tabled last October by the deputy EPR (Ensemble for the Republic) Thomas Cazenave. The text of the law aims first of all to fight “Against all fraud to public aid”, In particular those linked to energy renovation and ecological equipment, such as Maprimerenov ‘and energy savings certificates (EEC). In a second step, he takes up the basics of a baptized law “For a consented canvassing “adopted unanimously by the Senate on November 14 (see our article), which poses “The principle of the ban on non -consented commercial telephone canvassing”.
Clearly, the bill consecrates “The prohibition to canvilly canvass a consumer who has not previously expressed their consent to be the subject of commercial prospecting by this means (except in the execution of an in progress contract)”. Concretely, the idea is to prioritize consumer consent since today it is up to him to report his opposition to be called when he is in communication. Thus, the future law would like the consumer to be able to give their consent beforehand to be called. It is a question of considering that each Frenchman is considered by default to be opposed to being approached by phone. In short, quite the opposite of what is done now! However, there will be an exception: this ban on canvassing “is not applicable when the request comes within the framework of the execution of an in progress contract and having a connection with the subject of this contract”.
Does telephone canvassing live its last hours? For the moment nothing has been played. If consumer associations are obviously delighted – a dozen of them had published an open letter Last November, greeting a “Historical victory “ -, parliamentarians must face the concerns of the direct sales sector, which already announces massive job losses if the future law were to come into force.
One thing is certain, thousands of people could be satisfied with the end of this practice since, according to a survey carried out by the UFC-Que Choose in October 2024, 97 % of French people declared themselves annoyed by commercial canvassing. In the event of the adoption of the law, consumer consent may be requested like promotional emails. That is to say via a check box on a website to authorize the company to contact you.