Telemarketing: the 2025 French Law and Its Effects on Moroccan Contact Centres

What changed on 11 August 2026#

Until that date, telemarketing in France was based on opt-out: any consumer who had not registered with Bloctel could be called. Article 13 of Law No. 2025-594 of 30 June 2025 against all fraud involving public subsidies reversed the rule by rewriting Article L.223-1 of the French Consumer Code (code de la consommation): it is prohibited to call a consumer to solicit them without their prior consent.

Consent must be a freely given, specific, informed, unambiguous and revocable indication of wishes, expressed by a clear affirmative act. Silence and pre-ticked boxes do not count as consent. A sale cannot be made conditional on accepting sales calls.

The date of 11 August 2026 coincides with the end of the Bloctel concession: the opt-out list disappears at the moment opt-in becomes mandatory.

The two exceptions, and what is not telemarketing#

The ban has two exceptions:

1. An existing contract: calls made while a contract is being performed and related to its subject matter, including to offer complementary or related products or services, or ones that improve its performance or quality.
2. The press: offers of subscriptions to newspapers, periodicals or magazines.

In addition, under Decree No. 2026-662, calling back a consumer who asked for it, within five working days, is not telemarketing.

Note: some sectors remain closed to telemarketing even with consent. This is the case for energy renovation (since Law No. 2020-901 of 24 July 2020), adapting homes for elderly or disabled people, and the personal training account (compte personnel de formation, CPF) (Law No. 2022-1587 of 19 December 2022). The 2025 law extended the ban on energy renovation and home adaptation to text messages, emails and social media.

Decree 2026-662: content and duration of consent#

Decree No. 2026-662 of 23 July 2026 sets out the implementing conditions:

• the consent must name the business that will call and the purpose of the calls;
• it is valid for one year at most;
• proof must be kept for at least three years and made available to the consumer;
• the burden of proof lies with the business.

For a call centre, the consequence is direct: a list of numbers without a record of the consent, its date and its purpose can no longer be used. Our guide to proof of consent details the fields to keep.

Calling hours and frequency#

The rules on calling hours from Decree No. 2022-1313 of 13 October 2022 (Articles D.223-8 and D.223-9 of the French Consumer Code) continue to apply after August 2026, subject to the adjustments made by Decree No. 2026-662.

For a Moroccan contact centre, the difficulty is a practical one: Moroccan legal time and French time can differ depending on the time of year. Time slots must be set in the dialler on French time, not local time.

Penalties#

The nullity of contracts is often the costliest penalty for the client: the sales obtained are put at risk, and with them the centre's pay where it depends on sales.

Calling from Morocco changes nothing#

Article L.223-1 targets the business that solicits directly or through a third party acting on its behalf. The French client remains responsible for calls made by its Moroccan service provider, and no provision identified exempts calls made from abroad to consumers located in France.

In practice, clients pass this risk on to their service providers by contract: guarantees on the origin of call lists, an obligation to keep evidence, audits, penalties. The Moroccan centre must therefore be able to show, call by call, on what basis it dialled a number.

The stakes for the sector are considerable: the Minister of Employment, Younes Sekkouri, estimated in March 2026, in a written answer to a parliamentary question, that 40,000 to 50,000 jobs were directly threatened by the French law.

Inbound and outbound: what changes for a Moroccan centre#

The logic of this table leads to shifting value towards inbound, customer retention and after-sales service. Our guide to repositioning contact centres draws the consequences, and automated campaigns must also comply with the duty to disclose that a voicebot is AI.

What about Moroccan consumers?#

The French law does not apply to calls to consumers in Morocco. Those calls fall under Law 09-08 on personal data protection. According to the CNDP's (Morocco's data protection authority) fact sheet on prospecting, Article 10 of that law prohibits direct marketing by automated calling machine, fax or email without the person's prior consent, with an exception for similar products or services where the contact details were collected during a sale. Every message must offer a free and simple means of objecting.

The fact sheet sets no specific rule for calls made by a human agent: the general regime of Law 09-08 then applies, with informing the people concerned, the right to object and the formalities with the CNDP, described in our CNDP compliance method.

Action plan for a Moroccan centre#

1. Classify every ongoing campaign: inbound, outbound to existing customers, outbound prospecting, prohibited sector.
2. Suspend any outbound prospecting without proof of consent that meets the decree.
3. Require clients and list suppliers to provide proof of consent, with date and purpose.
4. Configure the dialler: French time, French public holidays, four calls per 30 days.
5. Set up an evidence register kept for at least three years.
6. Review contracts: allocation of responsibilities, audits, what happens to cancelled contracts.
7. For the Moroccan market, check compliance with Article 10 of Law 09-08 on automated channels.
8. Refocus the offer on inbound and value-added customer relations.