After an agreement found in the joint joint committee, the deputies unanimously voted on Wednesday June 1 (194 voters) for a transpartisan bill aimed at regulating the influencer sector. The final version of the text should be adopted in the Senate this Thursday, June 1. “Influencers will continue to practise. The ‘influencers’ will still exist but will know that the law is there to punish them”enthused Arthur Delaporte, socialist deputy and co-author of the text.
First, the final version of the text gives a legal definition of the influencer. It is “natural or legal persons who, for a fee, mobilize their notoriety with their audience to communicate to the public by electronic means content aimed at promoting, directly or indirectly, goods, services or any cause”. They carry out the activity of“commercial influence by electronic means”.
What rules will influencers have to follow?
On the medical side, influencers should not promote surgical procedures. In addition, they may not promote acts or methods that replace acts, protocols or therapeutic prescriptions. A point that should have beneficial repercussions in the face of misinformation, while content promoting what is generally referred to as “alternative medicine” abound on social networks.
The text indicates that persons exercising the activity of commercial influence are prohibited from any promotion, direct or indirect, of products considered to be nicotine products that can be consumed and composed, even partially, of nicotine. This will particularly concern electronic cigarettes and nicotine sachets. The promotion of alcohol is obviously affected as well.
The promotion of subscriptions to advice or sports predictions is also prohibited, and a mention “No one under eighteen” will be imposed if influencers promote gambling. On the digital asset side (cryptos), the text requires companies wishing to do this type of advertising to register as a PSAN (digital asset service provider).
Finally, the text prohibits performing with animals whose keeping is prohibited in France, unless this is done with the assistance of an establishment authorized to keep these animals.
What penalties?
The bill provides for a two-year prison sentence and a fine of €300,000 in the event of violation of these provisions. A ban, definitive or provisional, to exercise the professional activity is also provided for. And not to omit the influencers installed in particular in Dubai, the text requests the designation in writing of a legal or natural person to “ensure a form of legal representation on the territory of the European Union”. They will also be required to take out civil insurance with an insurer established in the European Union to cover the financial consequences of their professional civil liability.