As part of the Ministry for Economic Affairs, Finance and Industry, the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Product Safety/Quality (DGCCRF, or Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes) is responsible for ensuring the smooth functioning of the markets for the benefit of all participants, and for providing an environment conducive to the economic development of activities in general.

Pursuing a trend under way for a number of years now, the DGCCRF is stepping up its administrative role as regards prevention, information and dissuasion, while continuing actively to pursue its traditional tasks of expertise and control. At the same time, it has to prepare for the future by consulting with the different economic actors in order find out more about their behaviour and expectations, by adapting texts to changes in the environment and by playing an ever more active role in European and international bodies.

I. PHYSICAL PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS

The quality and the safety of the products and services available to consumers are two closely overlapping notions.

1) Food safety

Where food safety is concerned, a number of important points need to be made:

a) The Agence française de la sécurité sanitaire des aliments (French food safety agency)

The Agence française de la sécurité des aliments (AFSSA), which was set up by the Act of 1 July 1998, became operational at the start of 1999. Coming under the authority of three Ministries (health, agriculture and consumer affairs), the AFFSA amalgamates and organises the said Ministries’ scientific structures. There were many calls on it prompted by the various crises that occurred in 1999 (the dioxin crisis, the Coca-Cola affair and the cases of listeria caused by cheeses and pork meat products).

The precautionary principle bas been clarified. The DGCCRF has added to its framework arrangements for crisis management. Product traceability has become one of the pillars of food safety. Lastly, a co-operation agreement was signed on 24 September between the DGCCRF, the Direction générale de l’alimentation (DGLA) and the Direction générale de la santé (DGS), the government departments responsible for monitoring human and animal food safety.

b) BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy)

"Mad cow" disease triggered consumers’ latent fears about their food in a major way, and these fears resulted in consumers bringing strong pressure to bear on the public authorities to analyse what risks there might be and introduce means of prevention. The sellers and suppliers themselves have, quite clearly, gauged the extent of consumers’ new and insistent demands to know about the product (background, essential characteristics, proper identification).

In 1999, 10 233 checks were carried out and 59 dispute proceedings were brought concerning, in the main, offences relating to the origin, nature and quality of meat.

c) Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

The DGCCRF intervened mainly in connection with the labelling of food products derived from GMOs. It participated actively in the drafting of Community regulations on this subject.

It is obvious that the major regulatory changes now in progress are going to result in new ways of conducting surveys. Already, it is envisaged that checks will be carried out into all allegations claiming absence of GMOs, especially in documents for professional use.

2) Product safety

The main problems where product safety is concerned related to:

a) The presence of certain phtalates in products intended for children, which prompted the government to bring in an order prohibiting the use of certain plasticizers in toys and childcare articles intended for infants aged under 3.

b) The eclipse on 11 August resulted in orders being brought in to stop imports of certain types of spectacles. The event mobilised 150 investigators, the DGCCRF laboratory in Massy, the Laboratoire national d’essais and the Institut national de la recherche scientifique and more than 40 different models were checked.

c) Specific regulations resulted either from the transposition of Community directives: pressure equipment (extinguishers, pressure cookers…), lifts, and second-hand mobile and lifting machinery, or from domestic measures: raised children’s beds and certain folding chairs. Also, the sale to minors of replica firearms intended to fire rigid projectiles is now banned and the said firearms have to show how powerful they are, the limit being two joules.

II. PROTECTION OF THE CONSUMER’S ECONOMIC INTERESTS

The most significant measures taken in 1999 with the object of improving the protection of consumers’ economic interests were in the following areas:

1) Over-indebtedness

The object of reforming the over-indebtedness procedure is to find the right answer to the distress of households whose means have diminished as a result of their social and financial situation worsening. With some households totally bereft of any lasting means, the debt commissions are unable to draw up recovery plans allowing debt repayments to be suitably scheduled.

The Act of 9 July 1998 and the Decree of 1 February 1999 improve the procedures for dealing with over-indebtedness and include measures aimed at forestalling any risk of exclusion.

The reform has, in particular, led to the debt rescheduling period being extended from 5 to 8 years, harmonised the minimum level of resources that households are left with (and which cannot be less than the social minimum income) so as to avert the risk of exclusion, and reduced or cancelled tax debts.

2) The euro

In order to enable consumers to adapt more easily to the euro in a climate of confidence and legal certainty, the Conseil national de la consommation (CNC), which is an advisory body comprising the public authorities and representatives of consumers and professionals, put forward an opinion regarding the conversion into euros of the Consumer Code thresholds applicable on 1 January 2002 at the latest.

The fact is that, for reasons of clarity, simple memorisation and ease of application, it was deemed worthwhile, and indeed necessary, to have the monetary amounts contained in the legislative and regulatory texts fixed in terms of euros, either without any decimal place or significantly rounded. The decision whether to round up or round down was taken on the basis of consumers’ interests.

3) Adapting Community law

a) Indication of the unit selling prices of certain pre-packaged products

Directive 98/6/EC of 16 February, concerning consumer protection in the indication of the prices of products offered to consumers, made it necessary to amend the Order of 10 November 1982 concerning the indication of the unit selling prices of certain pre-packaged products.

The new Order of 16 November 1999 keeps, in its Annex, a positive list of products for which there is an obligation to indicate the unit price. The list of food products has been changed very little, but has been updated to take account of the appearance or development of certain products (sugar substitutes, products aimed specifically at people actively involved in sports, etc.) and of certain difficulties when it comes to indicating a unit price (pastry products, for example). The list of non-food products has been extended.

b) A bill concerning the Consumer Code will transpose, or finish transposing into domestic law, four Directives on:

• comparative advertising: essentially, what is involved is authorising the implicit mention of a competitor or of goods and services made available by a competitor, and no longer restricting price comparisons to identical products sold under the same conditions.

• contracts negotiated by remote means: the bill defines the concept of remote selling of goods and services to consumers by giving an indicative list of the communications techniques that can be used to perform such operations. It also stipulates that the supplier is obliged to give the consumer prior information and to confirm the content thereof in writing. It gives the consumer the right to a grace period of seven days in which to retract without incurring any penalty and without being obliged to give any reason for the change of mind. Similarly, the consumer is protected in the event of a third person making fraudulent use of his/her charge card number.

• unfair terms: in view of the incomplete transposition of Article 4, paragraph 2 of Directive 93/13/EC of 5 April 1993, it is specified that, while the terms relating to the definition of the main subject matter of the contract or to the adequacy of the price and remuneration as against the goods sold or the services supplied escape assessment of their unfair nature, they do have to be in plain and intelligible language, as stipulated by the Directive.

• restraining action relating to the protection of consumers’ economic interests: the bill is designed to have recognized the right of approved entities and consumer associations to bring civil proceedings. The former will henceforth be able to refer directly to the civil courts to request the cessation of unlawful practices.

4) Relations between banks and their customers

Act No. 99-532 of 25 June 1999 on saving and financial security contains some important provisions concerning depositors’ guarantees, cross-border credit transfers and early repayment of property loans.

Previously, there were nine different systems for guaranteeing deposits in cash and securities. Since the Act of 25 June, these have all be brought together into one system. Also, the Act provides for compulsory intervention by the guarantee fund in the event of deposits being unavailable, as well as the possibility of taking preventive action.

The second provision concerns the transposition of Directive 97/5/EC of 27 January 1997 on cross-border credit transfers. The Act, which is concerned with transactions denominated in the currency of a Member country of the European Economic Space, provides that the bank shall compensate for any delay in executing an order, even if no error has been made. Compensation has to be paid within a maximum of 14 days of the transfer being made, and does not rule out the possibility of common law action.

Lastly, the Act has modified the system of compensation which banks can require borrowers to pay in the event of early reimbursement of a property loan. For contracts concluded after 1 July 1999, compensation is no longer payable if the property is sold because the borrower changes his place of work, because he or his spouse dies, or because the borrower or his spouse is obliged to stop working.

5) Consignment-sale contracts

In 1999, the Commission des clauses abusives, or CCA (commission on unfair terms). issued an important opinion concerning consignment-sale contracts. The terms declared to be unfair were those, in particular, which enabled sellers or suppliers:

• to exonerate themselves from all responsibility if an article deposited should be damaged, disappear or be destroyed,

• not to inform depositors that a sale has taken place,

• to keep the proceeds of the sale or to replace them with credit vouchers, after a certain lapse of time and without informing the depositor beforehand.

6) Mobile telephones

a) The CCA recommendation

The CCA has examined mobile phone contracts and issued a recommendation.

A total of 37 unfair terms were catalogued, these relating to training, the duration and execution of the contract, the provision of services and the responsibilities of sellers and suppliers, billing, and payment at the end of the contract and when it is terminated. Amongst these terms are those that enable sellers or suppliers to suspend services without warning in the event of even a slight lapse on the part of the subscriber, those that authorize them to demand a deposit or security during the lifetime of the contract, those that exonerate sellers or suppliers from all responsibility and shift the burden of proof in their favour, those that make automatic debiting of bank accounts the only way of paying or which make the customer pay cancellation costs even when he is not at fault.

b) A working party on mobile telephone contracts

An informal working party comprising sellers, suppliers and government has been set up in order to abolish unfair terms in mobile phone contracts.

c) A specialised CNC working party

A National Consumer Council (CNC) working party is working on the readability of fixed and mobile telephone bills.

d) Revision of regulatory texts

Because of the way the telecommunications market is developing, it was deemed necessary to revise the old regulatory texts specific to the telephony sector, which dated from 1994. Work on revising the said texts, which is being carried out in collaboration with sellers and suppliers, should be completed during the course of 2000.

7) Repairs carried out in the home

The Conseil national de la consommation (CNC or national consumer council) handed down an opinion on repairs carried out in the home, the object of which was to make it easier to identify skilled service providers by developing different indicators of quality in this sector.

III. CONSUMER INFORMATION AND EDUCATION

1) The consumer movement

In 1999, the consumer movement comprised 18 approved national associations, compared with 17 in 1998. At local level, there are some 1 300 associations throughout the country, the vast majority of them affiliated to one of the 18 national organisations.

Then there are the Centres techniques régionaux de la consommation (CTRCs or regional technical consumer centres) -- regional groupings of associations which, like the Institut national de la consommation (INC, or national consumer institute), provide technical back-up (legal, economic and documentary assistance and training for militants) for local consumer organisations and produce television programmes for the latter.

Public financing of the consumer movement in France is provided via the subsidies allocated to consumer associations and to the CTRCs.

The said subsidies increased by 2.80% in 1999.

2) Information and education

• Information

The CTRCs make television programmes on consumer topics, with the cost of producing and distributing the said programmes being covered by government subsidies. Each CTRC makes 15 original programmes which are shown three times.

Also, the INC produces specialised consumer programmes on behalf of the national consumer associations (the Consomag programmes shown four times a week).

Via the Minitel: 3614 CONSOM (FRF 0.37 per minute), the DGCCRF is continuing to provide information (5 000 screen pages) thanks to improved methods of access, constantly updated lists of addresses, amendments to the drafting on the basis of changes in the texts, events and economic policy. Information specifically devoted to consumer questions is now also available on the Internet site of the Ministry for Economic Affairs, Finance and Industry (www.finances.gouv.fr).

Lastly, in 1999 the CNC handed down a series of opinions aimed at improving consumer information on products and services. Amongst these opinions, mention should be made of the introduction of the single currency (in particular, the conversion into euros of the Consumer Code thresholds, improved training for sellers and suppliers), breakdown and repair services in the home, methods of preserving perishable foodstuffs, unit selling prices… Also, where the Y2K bug was concerned, the CNC worked in close collaboration with the Comité national pour le passage à l’an 2000 (evaluation of the sectors deemed most important for consumers).

• Education

In order to select educational documents on consumption, the INC has created an original tool, the pédagothèque, which is a database containing educational documents on consumption, the latter available in every possible form. Teachers wanting to use a document can obtain from the pédagothèque all the information they need to obtain it, together with a description of the document and a critical analysis to help them make their choice. This documentation may be consulted via the Minitel: 36 15 INC (FRF 2.23 per minute) and, since 15 January 1998, on the Internet.

A number of national consumer associations include in their activities measures with an educational slant aimed at young consumers. These campaigns targeted at young people are mainly concerned with safety in the home and sports-related safety measures (e.g. regarding the use of mountain bikes). Also, there are information campaigns about the sort of consumer questions that young adolescents may be asking themselves (for example, about banking, insurance, means of payment, credit, sales, a balanced diet). Some of these schemes take place in schools.