Your French customer has been summoned by the consumer authority: the foreign supplier's guide
Your French distributor has been summoned by the DGCCRF or DDPP: CLP labelling, French-language duties, green claims and coordinated defence explained.
%20-%20Grande.avif)
The short answer
- Which authority: the DDPP (Direction départementale de la protection des populations) carries out inspections on the ground within the national framework set by the DGCCRF, using the powers in articles L. 512-1 et seq. of the French Consumer Code: access to professional premises, copying of documents, sampling, taking of statements and requiring production of documents.
- Reach over a foreign supplier: a manufacturer established in the European Union can be pursued directly in France, while a manufacturer established outside the EU is generally reached through its importer or authorised representative, its products remaining liable to withdrawal, recall or blocking at import.
- Evidence held abroad: article L. 512-15 of the French Consumer Code allows officers to require production of all evidence substantiating a commercial claim, including where that evidence is held by a manufacturer established outside French territory.
- Language: the Toubon Act (Law No 94-665 of 4 August 1994) and article L. 412-1 of the Consumer Code require French for the designation, presentation, instructions for use and mandatory labelling of products intended for French consumers, so a label only in English is recorded as a breach.
- Time limits: written observations in the adversarial phase must be filed within one month (articles L. 522-5 and R. 522-2 of the Consumer Code), and an administrative decision is challenged within two months before the administrative court (article R. 421-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice), extended by two further months for persons residing abroad (article R. 421-7).
- Penalties: a misleading commercial practice is punishable under article L. 132-2 of the Consumer Code by two years' imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 euros for individuals, which may be raised to 10 % of average annual turnover or to 50 % of the expenditure incurred on the practice, that rate rising to 80 % for environmental claims, with the fine rate multiplied by five for legal persons.
If your French distributor or importer has been inspected or summoned by the French consumer authority, you are already involved. The administration may work its way back up the supply chain to the manufacturer, including one established outside France, and the explanations your customer gives at interview will shape your own position. Two things decide the outcome: whether your products meet French rules on labelling, language and claims, and whether the two defences are consistent.
An inspection at a French distributor is never an isolated event. Investigators look at the products, the labels, the safety data sheets and the marketing claims, then ask the questions that matter to you: who manufactured this, who imported it, and who approved the wording. Each of those points somewhere along the chain, and very often upstream, so a routine visit to a French retail shelf becomes a file about a foreign manufacturer's own compliance.
This guide explains what the French consumer authority is, which obligations are most often sanctioned, who can be pursued along the chain, why your customer's answers bind you, and what a coordinated defence achieves. For a live file of this kind, see our page on DGCCRF, DDPP and DREETS proceedings for foreign companies.
The French consumer authority, and why an inspection at your customer reaches you
What the DGCCRF and the DDPP are
France does not have a soft-powered consumer ombudsman. It has an investigating and sanctioning administration. The DGCCRF (Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes) is the directorate of the Ministry of the Economy responsible for consumer protection, product conformity and fairness of transactions. It designs national investigation campaigns, on detergents, cosmetics, toys or environmental claims, and it decides administrative sanctions.
The field work is done by the DDPP (Direction départementale de la protection des populations), the departmental service that visits shops, warehouses, importers and e-commerce operations. Its officers hold the powers set out in articles L. 512-1 et seq. of the French Consumer Code: access to professional premises, copying of documents, sampling, taking of statements, and a right to require production of documents. In business-to-business matters the regional DREETS plays an equivalent role.
The domino effect: from the retail shelf to your production line
When an officer records a non-conformity on a product in a French shop, a missing hazard pictogram, a label only in English, an unsubstantiated biodegradability claim, the enquiry does not stop at the distributor. The Consumer Code organises responsibility along the chain: the distributor produces its invoices and correspondence with its supplier, the importer explains what verifications it carried out, and the manufacturer, even a foreign one, is identified as the possible origin of the defect.
Your exposure is twofold: the way your customer describes the allocation of roles weighs directly on attribution, and the administration can widen the enquiry to every other French distributor of the same product. Anticipating that from the first summons, rather than after the interview, is where a lawyer practising in French consumer law makes the difference.
CLP labelling: Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 as the first testing ground
Classification, labelling and packaging
Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008, the CLP Regulation, governs the classification, labelling and packaging of chemical substances and mixtures placed on the EU market: detergents, household cleaners, adhesives, paints, air fresheners, biocides. Any hazardous mixture must be classified against the harmonised criteria, then labelled before being placed on the market, with standardised hazard pictograms, the signal word ("Danger" or "Warning"), hazard and precautionary statements and the identity of the responsible supplier.
The non-conformities most often recorded
French officers record the same defects again and again: a pictogram missing or non-compliant, hazard statements incomplete by reference to the actual classification, a label with no French version, an inconsistency between the safety data sheet and the label, or a classification not updated after a regulatory change. Each finding can support administrative or criminal consequences.
These are rarely isolated slips: a classification error upstream propagates through the whole documentary chain. Determining whether a recorded defect is genuinely attributable to the supplier, to a repackager or to the distributor is where a lawyer practising in French consumer law makes the difference.
Information in French: article L. 412-1 and the Toubon Act
The French-language requirement
Two bodies of rules impose the use of French. Article L. 412-1 of the Consumer Code and its implementing texts govern mandatory labelling and information for products placed on the national market. The Toubon Act, Law No 94-665 of 4 August 1994, requires French in the designation, offer, presentation and instructions for use of goods intended for the French consumer. The consequence is blunt: a product fully compliant at home becomes non-compliant in France if its label, leaflet or safety warnings are not translated, and a QR code pointing to a foreign-language website will not cure the defect.
Who was supposed to translate: the classic contractual trap
"Who was responsible for the French label?" is one of the first questions investigators ask, and one of the least well anticipated in contracts. The pattern is familiar: a foreign manufacturer delivers containers labelled in its own language and in English, assuming its French importer handles local compliance, while the importer believes it is buying a product ready for sale. Neither position is written down anywhere.
At the inspection the administration questions the whole chain, and without a factually accurate account divergent statements make the file worse for everyone. Rebuilding a coherent position before the interviews is where a lawyer practising in French consumer law makes the difference.
Environmental claims: the most sensitive ground at present
The legal basis: misleading commercial practices
Environmental claims are policed as misleading commercial practices under articles L. 121-2 et seq. of the Consumer Code: a practice is misleading where it rests on false statements or statements likely to mislead as to the essential characteristics of the goods, and environmental properties are essential characteristics. A claim that a product is "biodegradable" or "eco-friendly" must be accurate, verifiable and unambiguous.
The burden of substantiation sits with the trader, and article L. 512-15 of the Consumer Code deserves a second reading if you manufacture abroad: officers may require the party responsible to produce all evidence substantiating the claims used, including where that evidence is held by a manufacturer established outside French territory. A supplier relying on a home-market standard often finds its documentation judged insufficient, and the French distributor that repeated the claim is exposed on the same basis.
"Carbon neutral", "biodegradable": a tightening framework
France has gone further than most Member States on carbon claims. The Climate and Resilience Act of 22 August 2021 introduced article L. 229-68 of the Environment Code, which prohibits stating in an advertisement that a product or service is "carbon neutral", or any equivalent wording, unless the trader publishes an emissions assessment, a reduction trajectory and the offsetting arrangements. Other wordings such as "biodegradable" are restricted on certain product categories, and the direction of travel is towards tighter control of greenwashing.
The risk is again to reason from domestic standards: a claim tolerated in Germany, Italy or the United States can be a criminally sanctioned misleading practice in France. Every claim on the packaging, the product sheets and the distributor's marketing has to be audited before any substantive answer is sent, and that qualification exercise is where a lawyer practising in French consumer law makes the difference.
Who the authority can pursue along the distribution chain
The party responsible for first placing the goods on the market
Articles L. 411-1 et seq. of the Consumer Code impose a general obligation of conformity: from the moment they are first placed on the market, products must meet the requirements in force as to safety, health and fairness of transactions, and the party responsible for first placing them on the national market must verify that conformity. Where the manufacturer is established abroad, that pivotal role is very often assumed by the importer or the first French distributor, which is why your customer was contacted first.
That does not shelter the foreign supplier. A manufacturer established in the European Union can be pursued directly. A manufacturer outside the EU is harder to reach personally and is generally handled through its importer or authorised representative, but its products can be withdrawn, recalled or blocked at import, which hits its whole commercial presence in France. On the practical limits of the argument drawn from foreign establishment, see our analysis of whether a French administrative fine can be enforced outside the European Union.
A qualification argued case by case
The status of party placing goods on the market is not something a contract can simply declare. It is inferred from the real flows, who imports, who invoices, who owns the brand, who designs the labelling, and from the contractual terms. That qualification largely determines who bears the consequences, and it is settled in large part by the first statements made to investigators.
Table 1 - Who can be pursued along the distribution chain
What we see in practice
In the files we handle, the first thing an officer asks the distributor for is not a legal position: it is paper. Purchase invoices, the supply contract, the safety data sheet, the artwork approved for the label, and the email thread in which the French wording was agreed. The technical substantiation of any environmental claim comes next, and it is the item foreign suppliers are least able to produce quickly. We regularly see manufacturers send home-market test reports untranslated, drafted against a different standard, after which the claim is treated as unsubstantiated. The other recurring pattern is silence: the distributor absorbs the visit alone for several weeks and warns its supplier only once the inspection report is being drafted, by which time the account of who designed the label, who translated it and who checked it is already on the record.
How the procedure actually unfolds
Phase 1: inspection, sampling and document collection
It usually starts with a visit to the distributor: examination of the products, photographs of the labels, samples sent for laboratory analysis, and collection of invoices, contracts, safety data sheets and technical files. Officers may also require production of documents under article L. 512-8, which reaches documents of any kind in whoever's hands they are held: your logistics provider, your marketing agency, the marketplace or the accountant can each receive a request. Article L. 512-11 extends access to software, stored data and algorithms.
This phase is often silent for the foreign supplier: the distributor, dealing with the urgency, does not always inform it immediately, even though the documents handed over concern it first.
Phase 2: the summons and the interview of your French customer
Where the findings suggest a criminal offence, typically a misleading commercial practice, the officers of the distributor are summoned for a free interview, with procedural guarantees: information about the suspected offence, the right to be assisted by a lawyer, the right to remain silent. The statements taken can be used against the person speaking and against their commercial partners, and the questions will be about the relationship with you: who drafted the label, who supplied the substantiation, what verifications were performed.
For the foreign supplier, the interview of the customer is indirectly its own interview. One unfortunate sentence, "we trust the manufacturer, we do not check anything", can point the entire file upstream. Preparing that stage is where a lawyer practising in French consumer law makes the difference.
Phase 3: the possible outcomes
Several routes then open, sometimes cumulatively: an injunction to comply or to cease a practice under article L. 521-1, with a daily penalty of up to 3,000 euros and, where the underlying fine is at least 75,000 euros, a penalty calculated on worldwide turnover; publication of the injunction at the trader's expense under article L. 521-2; an administrative fine under article L. 522-1; withdrawal or recall of non-compliant products. Where the practice appears on an online interface and an injunction has not been complied with, article L. 521-3-1 permits de-indexing, restriction of access and blocking of a domain name.
Before any fine, the adversarial phase applies: article L. 522-4 requires a copy of the inspection report to be sent to the person concerned, and article L. 522-5 requires the administration to state in writing the sanction envisaged, to inform the person that they may be assisted by counsel of their choice, and to invite observations, article R. 522-2 setting that period at one month. On the criminal side, the file may go to the public prosecutor.
Table 2 - Key obligations, texts and exposure
What the chain really risks
Administrative measures and publication
These measures hit the product itself, so even where the foreign supplier is not personally sanctioned, removal of its references from French shelves is an immediate economic sanction. Publication of certain measures is provided for by articles L. 521-2 and L. 522-6, at the trader's expense, and recalls appear on public platforms that French retail buyers monitor.
Criminal exposure: the offence of misleading commercial practice
Under article L. 132-2 of the Consumer Code, a misleading commercial practice is punishable by two years' imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 euros for individuals. The fine may be raised, proportionately to the advantages derived from the offence, to 10 % of average annual turnover calculated on the last three known annual turnovers, or to 50 % of the expenditure incurred on the practice, that rate rising to 80 % for environmental claims. Where the offence is committed by online or digital means, the penalties rise to five years and 750,000 euros, and for legal persons the fine rate is multiplied by five.
Article L. 132-3 adds complementary penalties for individuals, including a ban of up to five years on directing or managing a commercial business, and article 121-2, paragraph 3, of the Criminal Code confirms that the liability of a legal person does not exclude that of the individuals who committed the same acts. A director based abroad is not outside this framework, as we discuss for the Dubai-based director whose company is audited in France.
Why the answers your customer gives will bind your position
French files are built on documents and statements gathered before anyone has seen the whole picture, and three mechanisms turn your customer's answers into your problem. First, the inspection report: under article L. 512-2 of the Consumer Code, findings recorded by authorised officers stand as proof until the contrary is shown, so a statement that the label was supplied ready to use by the manufacturer becomes a recorded element you will have to displace. Second, the reach of article L. 512-8, which extends to documents in whoever's hands they are held, including your own emails: the defensive message sent in the first 48 hours will very likely end up in the file, read alongside a contract that says nothing on the point.
Third, attribution: who "committed" the practice, the party that designed the message or the party that distributed it, is answered largely on the first statements and documents, long before structured observations are filed. Once the report is signed, positions are frozen. Understanding what is already fixed in your file, and what remains open, is where a lawyer practising in French consumer law makes the difference.
What we see in practice
Most of the damage in the first days is self-inflicted. We regularly see a defensive email sent to the French customer within 48 hours, allocating blame in writing, and that email comes back into the file through the officers' power to require production of documents. We also see labels quietly corrected with no traceability, which comparison with the samples already taken makes plain. On timing, the one-month period for written observations is real but misleading: between translating the file, locating the technical documentation held at head office and instructing counsel in Paris, a foreign supplier commonly loses half of it. In the files that go well, the factual chronology, the contractual allocation of the labelling duty and the substantiation file were assembled before the first interview, and each party spoke only to its own role. In the improvised ones, the parties blame each other and proceedings open against both.
The value of a coordinated defence
Consistency of the account
Where several links in a chain are involved, the administration compares what each party says: what the distributor states at interview, what the importer writes in response to a request for documents, what the foreign supplier puts in its letters. Divergent versions on simple factual points weaken everyone's credibility.
Coordination does not mean concealment or artificially aligned accounts. It means establishing in advance an accurate and shared factual chronology, and ensuring that each party speaks to its own role. That work, conducted under lawyer-client confidentiality and subject to conflict-of-interest rules, belongs before the first interview.
Attribution: the losing game of mutual blame
The instinct of each link is to point at the other: the distributor invokes its trust in the manufacturer, the manufacturer replies that local compliance was its customer's job. That exchange is almost always a losing strategy. It shows the administration that nobody performed the required verifications and opens the way to parallel proceedings against both. Which arguments are actually available depends entirely on your file, and identifying them is the work of a lawyer practising in French consumer law.
Timing, language and a single point of contact
The useful window is narrow, so coordination has to be organised from the first signs of the inspection. The procedure also runs in French, with one month to file observations under article R. 522-2 and a two-month appeal period under article R. 421-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice, extended by two further months for persons residing abroad under article R. 421-7. A single point of contact in Paris able to deal with the DDPP and track those deadlines is a decisive practical advantage.
Table 3 - Key stages and time limits
The reactions that make things worse
Some reflexes almost always aggravate the situation. Sending your customer a defensive email allocating blame, when that email will reach the file through the right to require production of documents. Quietly changing labels without traceability, which comparison with the samples already taken will reveal. Contacting the DDPP directly without preparation. Or hoping the procedure will stop at the distributor. Whether, when and how to bring into compliance the references sold elsewhere in France is a strategic decision, and it is where a lawyer practising in French consumer law makes the difference.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly is the French consumer authority that summoned my customer?
Most likely the DDPP, the departmental service that inspects on the ground within the framework set by the DGCCRF, the directorate of the French Ministry of the Economy responsible for competition, consumer affairs and fraud control. It is not a court: it is an administration with powers of inspection, sampling, document production, injunction and fine, which can also send a file to the public prosecutor.
Can the French authority sanction a foreign supplier directly?
It depends on where you are established and what your role was. A manufacturer established in the European Union can be pursued directly. A manufacturer outside the EU is harder to reach personally, but its products can be suspended, withdrawn, recalled or blocked at import, and its liability pursued through its importer or authorised representative. Either way, the outcome of the inspection at your French customer determines your commercial future in France.
My French customer has been summoned for an interview. Should I react?
Yes, and quickly. The interview will cover the relationship with you: the origin of the products, who designed the label, who provided the substantiation, how translation and compliance were allocated. Those statements go into the file and can steer the enquiry upstream. Once the inspection report is signed the account is fixed and very difficult to correct.
Is an English-language label enough to sell a product in France?
No. The Toubon Act of 4 August 1994 requires French in the designation, presentation and instructions for use of products intended for French consumers, and article L. 412-1 of the Consumer Code governs mandatory labelling. Safety information, CLP hazard statements and instruction leaflets must be in French. A label only in English is a breach recorded as a matter of routine.
Who is responsible for compliance: the foreign manufacturer or the French distributor?
Both can be, on different grounds. The Consumer Code places a duty to verify conformity on the party responsible for first placing the goods on the French market, often the importer where the manufacturer is abroad. But the manufacturer remains bound by its own obligations, notably under the CLP Regulation, and a distributor cannot sell products whose non-conformity would have been apparent from elementary checks.
Can I claim that a product is "biodegradable" or "carbon neutral" in France?
Only within strict limits. Any environmental claim must be accurate, verifiable and unambiguous, failing which it can constitute a misleading commercial practice under articles L. 121-2 et seq. of the Consumer Code, with the substantiation burden on the trader. Carbon neutrality claims in advertising are specifically restricted by article L. 229-68 of the Environment Code.
Can we present a joint defence with our French customer?
You can coordinate, within limits. A single lawyer cannot act for two parties whose interests conflict, and the allocation of responsibility between supplier and distributor is exactly the kind of point on which interests diverge. What is workable, and often decisive, is coordination between separate counsel: a shared factual chronology, agreement on who speaks to what, and no unilateral communication with the administration beforehand.
Conclusion
An inspection at a French distributor is, for a foreign supplier, an early warning rather than someone else's problem. The framework is demanding on three fronts easily underestimated from abroad: CLP classification and labelling, the duty to inform the French consumer in French, and the substantiation of environmental claims.
What decides these files is whether the account given to the authority is accurate, consistent and delivered on time, and whether the arguable points are identified before positions are frozen. That assessment requires your contracts, your labels, your substantiation file and the documents already handed over. This is where a lawyer practising in French consumer law makes the difference, and where an early conversation costs far less than a late one.
About the author
Guillaume Leclerc is an avocat admitted to the Paris Bar, practising through SELARL Victoris, 34 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris. His practice is centred on French consumer-protection and competition enforcement: DGCCRF, DDPP and DREETS inspections, requests for production of documents, adversarial proceedings before an administrative fine, injunctions, and appeals against sanction decisions. He is regularly instructed by manufacturers, importers and distributors established outside France, works in French and English, and handles files remotely for clients with no establishment in France. Further detail is available on the firm's page on French consumer authority proceedings, and enquiries can be sent through the contact page.
Last reviewed: September 2026.
Further reading:
