The French rule moved in 2024 and most of the advice online has not noticed.
For twenty years the mentions légales obligation sat in article 6 of the LCEN. It does not any more. The identification duties moved in May 2024 and the sanction moved with them, and almost every template and guide still points at the old article.
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What is actually different about selling into France
The specifics that change the build, not a list of countries I will work in.
The regulator
The Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés, the CNIL, which takes the strictest line in Europe on what a consent banner has to do before anything loads.
What the site must publish
The mentions légales now sit in article 1-1 of the LCEN, which replaced article 6-III on 23 May 2024 under the SREN law. The penalty provision moved to article 1-2. A page citing article 6-III is citing a text that no longer exists.
The cookie rule
The CNIL exempts audience measurement from consent only when every condition is met at once, and its own position is that most large measurement products fall outside the exemption whatever their configuration.
Checkout
Euro, and French buyers pay overwhelmingly by card, most of which run on the domestic Cartes Bancaires network, usually co-badged with an international scheme.
What usually goes wrong on a French site
Mentions légales citing a repealed article
A footer page headed with article 6-III of the LCEN, more than a year after the identification duties moved to article 1-1. Small to fix and a clear signal of how old the rest of the compliance work is.
A banner that would not survive a CNIL reading
Analytics firing before the choice, or an audience measurement setup that fails one of the exemption conditions and is therefore running without the consent it needed.
English pages for a French search market
France is the European market least willing to search and buy in English. A page that exists only in English is not competing for the phrases that matter.
Translated French rather than written French
Copy that is grammatically correct and reads as foreign in the first paragraph, competing for phrases a French buyer would never type.
Not sure which of those it is? Send the web address and the written 15 point check says so in two working days, free.
What the work actually is
The same list whether you are in France or anywhere else I work.
The 15 point technical check
Speed, indexing, structured data, redirects, consent and the rest, written out in the order worth fixing rather than the order a crawler found them.
Pages for what buyers search
Built from real search data in the language your buyers type, not translated from an English page and hoped over.
A redirect map before anything moves
Every old address mapped to a new one and tested before launch, because this is the step that loses rankings when it is skipped.
Tracking that waits for consent
Nothing loads before a choice is made, and the banner says what it does. This is the part regulators are actually acting on.
Google Ads on a flat fee
A fixed monthly amount whatever the spend, so the advice does not get more expensive when the budget does.
Shopify and WooCommerce moves
Products, variants, media and URLs moved with the search positions held, on the same domain where that is possible.
Custom systems when software is the problem
Order flows, stock feeds and internal tools, when the honest answer is that no amount of marketing fixes the process underneath.
Plain monthly notes
What was done, what it changed and what is next, in a page you can read without a glossary.
Want the number first? Every price is published, including the ones I would not charge you.
What actually changed in May 2024
The SREN law rewrote the structure of the LCEN. Article 6 now deals with intermediary services such as access providers, hosts and platforms, and the duties that tell an ordinary business what to publish about itself moved to article 1-1, with the criminal sanction moving to article 1-2. The substance of what you have to publish did not change much. The reference did, and a reference to a repealed provision is the kind of detail that makes everything else on the page look unmaintained.
This is the same pattern as Germany, where the Telemediengesetz became the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz a year earlier and most English language guidance still has not caught up. If you sell into both, the two lists are set side by side in the imprint guide, which also covers which country's list binds a foreign supplier.
The CNIL is the strictest regulator you will deal with
The CNIL does exempt audience measurement from consent, and the exemption is narrow enough that most sites relying on it are not inside it. Every condition has to hold at once: users informed and able to object, purposes limited to audience measurement and testing, no cross referencing with other processing, and no onward use by the supplier for its own ends. The CNIL's own formulation is that most large audience measurement offerings fall outside it whatever their configuration.
That leaves two honest choices, and both work. Gate the tag behind real consent and accept that you measure only the people who agreed, or move to measurement that does not create the problem, which is what the CNIL itself points people towards. Which is right depends on how complete your numbers need to be, and the guide to GDPR and analytics sets out the trade with the alternatives named.
A furniture retailer: three storefronts, three ad accounts and a CRM
A Dutch furniture retailer with three brands and a ten to twelve week order cycle, where the online numbers alone made a busy business look like a failing one until the measurement was fixed.
What I will not do
Said before you ask, because it is usually the deciding part.
Promise a position
Nobody controls Google's results, and anyone who promises a ranking is either guessing or lying. I will tell you what is winnable and what is not, with the search data in front of you.
Hold your accounts
Analytics, Search Console and every ad account are registered in your name from day one. If you stop working with me you lose nothing but me.
Bill a percentage of ad spend
A percentage pays me more when you spend more, which is the wrong incentive. Advertising is a flat monthly fee whatever the budget.
Take the work if it is the wrong spend
If the free check says your problem is not a website problem, the report says so and I tell you what would actually move the number.
Rather just ask? One question by email or WhatsApp is fine.
The rest of Western Europe
Neighbouring markets, each with its own regulator, language and checkout.
Every market I work in is listed on where I work, with what differs in each one.
Fair questions before you get in touch
You are not based here. Does that matter?
It has not so far. Everything runs by email and WhatsApp, the accounts are in your name, and the work is the same work wherever it is typed. I am in Pakistan and I say so on every page, because finding that out later is worse than reading it now.
Our mentions légales still cite article 6-III. Is that a real problem?
The information you have to publish barely changed, so the content is probably fine. Citing a provision that no longer exists is not, and correcting it is a five minute edit. Do it, and check the privacy policy while you are there.
Can we keep Google Analytics on a French site?
Behind genuine consent, yes, and you then measure only the people who consented, which in France is a smaller share than most people expect. The alternative is measurement that does not depend on consent at all. I will show you both numbers before you choose.
Do we really need French pages if our buyers speak English?
In France more than anywhere else in Europe, yes. The searching happens in French even among people whose English is excellent, and an English page is not competing for those phrases at all.
Why are the prices on the website?
Because the alternative is a quote form, and a quote form exists to get you on a call before you know the number. The free 15 point check, the 290 euro audit and the monthly and rebuild prices are all published. You can decide before you ever write to me.
How long before any of this shows up in search?
A new page on a site that already carries some authority can move within weeks. On a site with very few links pointing at it, expect months, and expect the first movement on specific questions rather than on the obvious commercial terms. I will not give you a date, because nobody controls the result. What I will give you is the order of the work and what each step is meant to change.
Send your web address. That is the whole first step.
The written 15 point check comes back within two working days, free. It says what is holding the site back, in the order worth fixing.