PARIS – In France, incessant cold calls advertising solar panels, roofs, heat pumps and other items will stop on Aug 11, when a ban on unsolicited telemarketing calls goes into effect.

Companies will no longer be allowed to advertise goods and services through such calls unless consumers previously gave their consent or if the calls are about a preexisting contract.

The ban is unlikely to be met with any opposition in a country where 97 per cent of the population say they are annoyed by daily telemarketing calls, which have been steadily increasing in recent years, according to a parliamentary report.

A leading consumer advocacy group, Que Choisir Ensemble, called the ban a “historic measure” that “should finally put an end to the daily harassment that the French have endured for far too long”.

“Peace and quiet is a right,” the group’s president, Marie-Amandine Stévenin, said in a statement. “This observation holds true both online and on the street, where we are inundated with calls to consume.”

Frederic Billon, the head of Federation de la Vente Directe, a business organisation, said that the law would add administrative burdens for all local businesses that used to call their customers without giving it much thought.

“Today, that ‘without giving it much thought’ approach no longer exists,” he said. “You’ll have to obtain written consent from your customer, and you’ll also have to keep proof of that consent.”

Billon also said he was worried about unfair competition from unethical companies operating within and outside France.

In Morocco, where France represents a major market for telemarketing companies, the ban could lead to the disappearance of up to 50,000 jobs in the country, according to a government official quoted by Le Matin, a daily Moroccan newspaper.

Delphine Batho, a French lawmaker, said in a broadcast interview on Aug 10 that calls from abroad “will be illegal” and that “necessary steps must be taken, including with telecom operators, to ensure that these calls, which are scams, are technically blocked”.

The new legislation, which Parliament adopted in May 2025, is a significant shift from having French people consent by default to receiving telemarketing calls. Previously, consumers could be contacted at random unless they signed up on “Bloctel”, a free government registry to avoid getting such calls.

Though phone numbers listed on “Bloctel” nearly doubled between 2021 and 2024 and more than 38 million calls a day were being blocked, the service was deemed inefficient because companies often failed to take it into account, according to the parliamentary report.

Under earlier legislation that aimed to tackle the issue, some companies in specific industries like home renovations for older people or for people with disabilities were already forbidden to make unsolicited telemarketing calls.

Now, individuals face a fine of up to €75,000 (S$110,000) and companies can be fined €375,000 if they fail to comply with the new law. For calls targeting vulnerable individuals, the sentence could be as much as five years in prison and a fine of €500,000.

“From a legislative standpoint, we couldn’t do any better,” Pierre-Jean Verzelen, the French senator behind the initial bill, said in a broadcast interview at the time the new ban was adopted in 2025.

“The government will have to act immediately, hitting companies that don’t play by the rules hard and fast,” he said. “That’s the price we’ll have to pay to get results.”

In a July decree specifying the application of the law, the government said that even if consumers agreed to receive cold calls, they could change their mind at any point and businesses would have to seek consent again within a year. NYTIMES

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

France bans unsolicited telemarketing calls