Fewer fraud prevention checks in 2025 but more penalties

Thus, the share of checks that resulted in injunctions, requisitions or financial penalties reached nearly 26% in 2025, compared to 21% in 2023. The cumulative amount of fines and settlements exceeded 202 million euros, compared to 81 million in 2023.

Influx of small parcels from China, influencers... The Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF), attached to Bercy, has seen its scope of action expand in recent years, without an increase in its staff, which has been maintained at around 3.000 agents.

In this context, "the challenge is to concentrate our resources where it is important and where we can have results for businesses and for consumers," argued its CEO, Sarah Lacoche, during a press conference.

It is an "acknowledged" strategy of "reducing" the number of companies controlled - in favor of longer investigations into "more complex" subjects, particularly in the energy renovation sector where "unscrupulous" networks operate - accompanied by an "ambition for higher corrective and repressive consequences", she argued.

Quoted in a press release, the Minister of the Economy, Roland Lescure, sees it as "a rigor and performance in targeting serious shortcomings", praising a firmness "essential" in "time of crisis".

Among the "landmark cases" of 2025, the DGCCRF cites the sanctions imposed on Shein, amounting to 41 million euros, notably for misleading commercial practices.

It also welcomes the increasing use by consumers of its SignalConso platform (more than two million reports since its launch in 2020), particularly for problems related to online shopping or telephone solicitation.

Regarding telephone solicitation, the checks in 2025 "resulted in notifying more than 11 million euros in fines to operators" violating the regulations which will be strengthened in August.

On the influencer side, 280 professionals were checked, with "corrective and repressive measures" for 46% of them, Ms. Lacoche indicated.

More generally, the DGCCRF must "adjust" its organization and "continue to strengthen (its) expertise in digital" in the face of the rise of artificial intelligence, it stressed.