A "Mentions légales" page takes about an hour to write. It is the simplest legal obligation on a French website and one of the most frequently incomplete: a hosting provider named without an address or phone number, a share capital figure from three years ago, the web agency's details in place of the company's. This article lists what French law actually asks for, the order in which to check it, and which authority looks at what.
Disclaimer: this article is provided for information only and does not constitute legal advice. The texts cited are those in force at the time of writing; for a specific situation, consult a qualified legal professional.
Before re-reading the whole page, check these five points. They are the items most often left out.
If these five lines are present and current, the rest is usually in place. If not, the sections below tell you what to add.
The baseline is article 6 of the Loi pour la confiance dans l'économie numérique (LCEN, law no. 2004-575 of 21 June 2004). It applies to anyone publishing a website in a professional capacity, whether or not the site sells anything.
| Item | Natural person (sole trader, liberal profession) | Company |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | Surname, first names, home address | Company name or business name, registered office address |
| Telephone | Yes | Yes |
| Registration | RCS or RM number if registered | RCS or RM number |
| Share capital | Not applicable | Amount of share capital |
| Publication director | Yourself | The designated person, in practice usually the legal representative |
| Hosting provider | Name or company name, address and telephone number of the provider hosting the site | |
Personal websites. A natural person publishing a site in a non-professional capacity (a private blog, a club site run privately) may publish only the hosting provider's details, provided they have given their identity to that provider. This option disappears as soon as the site serves a professional activity.
Article 19 of the same law extends the list for any e-commerce activity, meaning the sale of goods or services online, including simply taking orders. It requires "easy, direct and permanent" access to the following, on top of the article 6 items:
Selling to consumers adds information duties from the Code de la consommation: general terms of sale, the right of withdrawal, and the contact details of the consumer mediator you have joined (article L.616-1). These usually live in the terms of sale rather than in the legal notice, but they have to exist somewhere on the site.
A frequent question: "Will the CNIL check my mentions légales?" As a rule, no. Three distinct frameworks apply, with three different actors.
| Obligation | Text | Who acts |
|---|---|---|
| Identification of the publisher and host | LCEN, article 6 | The courts, most often in the course of a dispute (unfair competition, counterfeiting, defamation) where the publisher's identity matters |
| Consumer information and price display | LCEN, article 19; Code de la consommation | The DGCCRF (the French consumer-protection and anti-fraud directorate) |
| Privacy policy and cookies | GDPR, article 13; Loi Informatique et Libertés, article 82 | The CNIL |
The LCEN backs article 6 with criminal penalties. In practice, a missing legal notice is mostly raised when another dispute makes the publisher's identity relevant. The CNIL, for its part, has no interest in your share capital: it looks at what you say about your data processing, at whether your cookie banner is compliant, and at the content of your privacy policy. Those are two separate workstreams, and the second one is covered in our guide to CNIL compliance.
A short page is enough. This is the skeleton we recommend, to be completed with your own data. The page itself should be in French for a French audience.
Éditeur du site
[Company name] – [legal form] au capital de [amount] €
Siège social : [address]
RCS [city] [number] – TVA intracommunautaire : [number]
Téléphone : [number] – Courriel : [address]
Directeur de la publication
[First name Last name], [role]
Hébergement
[Hosting provider name]
[Address] – Téléphone : [number]
Activité réglementée (if applicable)
[Professional title, State of qualification, professional body]
Données personnelles et cookies
Voir la politique de confidentialité : [link]The free Sitetals check reviews your home page and reports, among other things, whether a legal notice page or a privacy policy page is missing or unreachable, and which third-party services your site loads. It is a starting point for the review described above, not a replacement for it.
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Sources: Law no. 2004-575 of 21 June 2004 (LCEN), articles 6 and 19 · Code de la consommation, article L.616-1 · Regulation (EU) 2016/679, article 13 · Law no. 78-17 of 6 January 1978, article 82 · Sitetals methodology.
Sitetals editorial team