Announcement: New Compliance Rules for Voice Telemarketing and SMS in France

This affects: LeadDesk customer accounts with one or more active French phone numbers.

There are new compliance rules affecting how you can use numbers for outbound calling and messaging in France.

Voice telemarketing

France is introducing stricter consent requirements for voice telemarketing. Starting August 11, 2026, telemarketing calls to consumers in France will require documented, verifiable, explicit prior consent aligned with GDPR standards. Non-compliance can result in fines up to EUR 500,000 or 10% of annual turnover. Please confirm with your legal counsel how this applies to your business.

If your account places telemarketing calls into France, review your consent collection process now and make sure you’re capturing documented, verifiable, explicit prior consent aligned with GDPR.

SMS and RCS messaging

Earlier this year, the AF2M (Association Française du Multimédia Mobile), the co-regulatory industry body for mobile messaging in France, introduced a stricter Business Messaging charter covering message formatting, delivery practices, and sender identification. Messages that don’t meet the new standards risk being filtered or blocked. Key points:

  • URLs: Use full URLs and branded domains rather than generic shorteners, which French aggregators are more likely to filter. For RCS Single messages, shorteners carry a high risk of being blocked outright and should be avoided; RCS Basic messages (capped at 160 characters) are the one exception where short URLs remain acceptable.
  • Sending windows: Promotional messages are now restricted to 08:00 to 21:30 local time, Monday through Saturday. The AF2M explicitly recommends against sending promotional messages on Sundays and public holidays. Transactional messages (delivery updates, OTPs, account notifications) are exempt and can continue around the clock.
  • Sender ID: Alpha Sender IDs must use only Latin alphanumeric characters (A–Z, 0–9), up to 11 characters — accents, special characters, spaces, and punctuation are no longer permitted.

 

If your account sends SMS or RCS into France, review your sender IDs, link formatting, and send-time scheduling against these rules to avoid deliverability issues.

This is a summary to help you prepare and does not constitute legal advice — please confirm with your legal counsel how this applies to your business.