Europe 1 with AFP 3:49 p.m., January 9, 2023
This Sunday, the government announced the opening until the end of January of a public consultation to oblige influencers to follow a code of good conduct.
This also aims to reduce the number of scams related to their activity on social networks.
A code of good conduct for influencers, to prevent them from fooling their fans on the products they promote: this is the project of the French government, which announced on Sunday the opening until the end of January of a public consultation .
Controversies, sometimes followed by fines, regularly erupt over the practices of influencers who do not always reveal the relationships that bind them to certain brands.
Influencer Nabilla Benattia-Vergara, for example, paid a fine of 20,000 euros for promoting stock market services on Snapchat in 2018 without mentioning that she was paid for it.
Influencers have "a special responsibility"
The Ministry of the Economy announced the principle of this public consultation on December 9, following a round table with representatives of this booming sector, which for its part pleads for self-regulation.
"Millions of you consult their opinions, their recommendations in the field of fashion, sport, beauty, travel. They therefore play a role in our daily lives. It gives them a special responsibility", declared the French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, about the 150,000 influencers in France.
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"The vast majority of them obviously respect the rules. But there are also certain scams or sometimes quite simply certain oversights. We forget to say that we have been paid to recommend such a product, such a site or such a trip", he added in a video posted on the consultation site.
"It is these discrepancies, these shortcomings, sometimes this cheating that we want to correct with the regulation of this sector", he continued, referring to his desire to put in place a "code of good conduct".
I need you.
Participate as much as possible in the consultation to better support and supervise influencers.
Your opinion counts!
It's happening here: https://t.co/9Ln9uxjBIMpic.twitter.com/07TpvlyRq9
— Bruno Le Maire (@BrunoLeMaire) January 8, 2023
The consultation, accessible until January 31 on concertation-influenceurs.make.org, "will allow all French people who wish to express themselves on 11 measures divided into four themes", he specified: the rights and influencer obligations, intellectual property, consumer protection and industry governance.