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Jail threat for ‘influencers’ under tough new French law

Influencers in France face the threat of prison sentences or major fines under new legislation adopted by parliament on Thursday that is aimed at cracking down on undeclared advertising and fraud.

Published: 1 June 2023 17:16 CEST

Jail threat for 'influencers' under tough new French law

Photo by AFP

Touted as an effort to ensure online personalities face the same advertising rules as traditional media, the bill has made its way through parliament with cross-party support since March, culminating with a vote by the Senate on Thursday.

“The law of the jungle is over,” said Arthur Delaporte of the opposition Socialist Party who jointly sponsored the legislation with Stephane Vojetta from the ruling Renaissance party.

“We can be proud of this unprecedented agreement,” senator Amel Gacquerre, who piloted the legislation in the senate, said after the vote.

France is estimated to have around 150,000 influencers, many of whom have a modest audience, but some have millions of subscribers and help set trends in sectors from fashion to video games.

Their commercial activities – accepting money in exchange for promoting a product – are often undeclared and until now they have lacked a specific legal status in France.

The legislation will in theory force them to post the word “advertising” or “commercial partnership” when discussing products they have been paid to advertise, and make a formal contract mandatory.

It prohibits the promotion of cosmetic surgery, tobacco and some financial products and medical devices.

It also tightens rules for promoting sports betting and lottery games, which will be restricted to platforms that have the capacity to prohibit access to minors such as YouTube.

Violators of the rules could face punishments of up to two years in prison and €300,000 fines.

“The party is over for all of those that think you can cheat on the internet,” Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire declared earlier this month.

“Influencers create jobs, value. They are in the most part extremely creative, imaginative and bring a lot to the French economy,” he told the BFM channel. “Then there are few troublemakers who manipulate, who use their role badly, and cheat consumers.”

Some experts say police and prosecutors will face difficulties enforcing the rules for such a huge number of online creators, however, with many of them based overseas in different jurisdictions but viewable in France.

A high-profile campaign against fraudulent influencers has been led in recent months by controversial French rapper Booba who has dubbed them “Influ-stealers”.

In messages and videos posted to his millions of social media followers, he has called himself a whistle-blower and targeted leading personality Magali Berdah in particular, the boss of influencer agency Shauna Events.

“Apart from having no talent, from promoting vacuous culture, of being idiots and not paying their taxes in France, they’re ripping people off,” he told French newspaper Libération last July.

Berdah denies wrongdoing and has launched legal action.

A collective called AVI (Help for the Victims of Influencers) has begun launching legal action on behalf of people who consider themselves victims of online financial fraud.

One of their targets is well-known French couple Marc and Nade Blata, who offer investment advice while showing off their life of luxury in Dubai. They also deny wrongdoing.

Economy Minister Le Maire has backed Booba, saying he is “right to underline abuses.”

At the end of March, the Union of Influencers and Content Creators, set up recently to represent the sector, had welcomed “commendable and essential proposals” to regulate the industry.

But it warned parliamentarians against the risk of “discriminating against or over-regulating” certain players.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.