The Telephone canvassing in France takes on a worrying new dimension at the start of 2025: AIs are increasingly used to make canvassing calls and make the distinction between a human interlocutor and a machine increasingly difficult. These AIs, capable of conducting complex conversations and adapting to consumer responses, are a new challenge in the fight against abusive cold calling.
Faced with this technological development and the persistence of the problem of non-solicitation, the government put in place measures in 2023 to help consumers protect themselves.
Among these measures, we find the allocation of specific codes to canvassing centers that the French can block directly. For mainland France, these codes are: 0162, 0163, 0270, 0271, 0377, 0378, 0424, 0425, 0568, 0569, 0948 and 0949. Separate numbers have also been allocated for the overseas territories. In other words, if you see a number displayed that begins with these digits, you should be wary: it's cold calling. So you can block it if you don't want to hear about it.
Another obligation: call centers no longer have the right to contact you from a number starting with 06 or 07. In fact, many users have reported unsolicited telephone canvassing calls from these indicative. We must therefore be very wary. Moreover, an ARCEP study released in 2024 showed that 65% of French people no longer answer (“never” or “very rarely”) on the phone when they do not know the number, proof that canvassing has lost all confidence in the French on this point.
Four times a week
Despite efforts against these abuses, cold calling remains a scourge for many French people. According to a study by theUFC What to Choosecitizens are contacted on average 4 times a week without their consent for products and services which are therefore unsolicited. This situation led the Senate to vote, on November 14, 2024, a bill aimed at prohibiting telephone canvassing, without the prior consent of the consumer or as part of a current contract.
-If adopted by the National Assembly, this bill would mark a turning point in the fight against unwanted calls: it would reverse the current principle of opt-out for an opt-in system, which would oblige professionals to obtain explicit consent from consumers before contacting them for canvassing. This practice is already found in other countries in Europe such as Germany or Portugal.
Pending the potential adoption of this new law, the system Bloctel remains in force. As of November 1, 2024, 6,236,927 consumers were registered on this list opposing telephone canvassing. If this is not your case yet, you can always register here in the database. You should still know that many people registered on Bloctel are still approached.
Faced with this situation, companies have developed alternative solutions. For example, the operator Orange offers a free (or paid) application to filter unwanted calls called Orange Telephone. Google is also working on an application using artificial intelligence to combat unauthorized calls on Android smartphones.
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