Appointing a French EPR Representative Is Now Compulsory: Law n° 2026-602 and Article L. 541-10-9-1

On 10 July 2026, France changed the nature of the question "do I need a French EPR representative?". Until that date, appointing a mandataire REP was an option opened to foreign producers by the AGEC framework: practical, usually the only workable route, but not a written obligation. Since then it is a statutory obligation, and it comes with a transfer of obligations that the Conseil d'État had refused in 2023.

This article covers the text, its exact scope, what it transfers and what it does not, the marketplace case, and the regularisation path for producers whose eco-organism file carries no representative.

The text, in three sentences

Law n° 2026-602 of 8 July 2026 on reducing the environmental impact of the textile industry, known as the "Fast Fashion" law, was published in the Journal officiel n° 0159 of 9 July 2026 (NOR TECX2407166L). Its article 5, 2° created Article L. 541-10-9-1 of the Code de l'environnement, in force on 10 July 2026.

The title of the law is misleading. The measure is horizontal: it does not concern textiles alone, it applies to every French EPR stream, nineteen of them today, from household packaging to professional packaging, from WEEE to tyres.

What the article says, in substance: any person not established on French territory who is subject to Extended Producer Responsibility under Article L. 541-10 or L. 541-10-9 shall appoint, by written mandate, a natural or legal person established in France to ensure compliance with its EPR obligations; that representative is subrogated into the obligations arising from EPR for which it accepts the mandate; and the appointment obligation is treated as satisfied for products in respect of which a person covered by Article L. 541-10-9 and established in France ensures that compliance.

Who is covered, and who is not

The test is establishment in France. Not nationality, not EU membership, not where you ship from.

Covered:

• Producers established outside the European Union: United States, United Kingdom, China, Switzerland, Turkey and everywhere else.
• Producers established in another EU Member State with no French establishment. A German GmbH, a Spanish SL or an Italian Srl selling into France from home is in exactly the same position as a US seller. This is the most frequently missed point, because the topic circulated for years labelled "an obligation for non-EU sellers".
• Online intermediation platforms not established in France that fall within Article L. 541-10-9 (see below).

Not covered: producers established in France. A French company declares in its own name, has no representative to appoint, and stays under the earlier regime. If it outsources the preparation and filing of its declarations, that is a contractual arrangement, not a statutory mandate, and no subrogation follows.

The trigger remains making products available on the French market, not the channel. Marketplace sales, your own store, shipping from abroad, stock held in France, B2B sales: the analysis is the same, stream by stream.

The three conditions of the mandate

The text sets three cumulative requirements, and each of them can be checked before you sign.

A representative established in France. The text refers to a natural or legal person established on French territory. A pan-EU provider running the French leg through an undisclosed sub-provider does not meet that condition in any verifiable way: ask who the France-established person is, and under which SIREN number it appears on the file.

A written mandate. The appointment is not presumed and does not follow from a purchase order or an email exchange. It is a written mandate under Articles 1984 et seq. of the Code civil, signed, dated, with an identified scope. Electronic signature is fine, no notary is needed.

An accepted, delimited subrogation. The subrogation covers the obligations "for which it accepts the mandate". The accepted scope is therefore a contract clause, not a general formula: which streams, which obligations, effective date, duration. A mandate that stays vague on this is one whose scope you will discover during an inspection.

What the subrogation transfers, and what it does not

This is where a lot of commercial documentation is still stuck in 2023. Three limits frame the transfer.

It is bounded by the accepted scope. Streams you did not entrust stay yours. A packaging mandate does not cover your batteries or your textiles.

It is prospective. It runs from the effective date of the mandate. Undeclared earlier years, unpaid eco-contributions and earlier breaches stay with the producer. A representative promising to erase the past is promising something the statute does not allow.

It does not transfer producer status. You remain the producer within the meaning of Article L. 541-10, and you answer for the accuracy of the data you provide. The representative declares what you give it; if the tonnages are wrong, responsibility for the data has not moved.

Within those limits, though, the change is real: the obligations are carried by the representative, not merely performed on your behalf. That is precisely what the Conseil d'État held could not be done by decree.

Why Parliament had to legislate

On 10 November 2023, in case n° 449213, known as the EcoDDS ruling, the Conseil d'État annulled Article R. 541-174 of the Code de l'environnement insofar as it provided for subrogation of the representative. The objection was not that subrogation is unlawful: it is that modifying civil obligations between operators belongs to statute under Article 34 of the French Constitution, not to a decree. The annulment took immediate effect, with no deferral.

The legislator picked the file back up at the level the court had identified. Between 10 November 2023 and 9 July 2026, no French provision transferred EPR obligations from producer to representative; since 10 July 2026, Article L. 541-10-9-1 does, in a statute. Our analysis of the EcoDDS ruling sets out the reasoning and what survives of it.

The purpose of the measure is easy to state: to give the authorities a jurisdictional grip on any operator making EPR products available on the French market. Without a French establishment, a foreign producer is hard to inspect and harder still to prosecute. With a France-established, subrogated representative, the administration has a counterpart against whom the obligation can be enforced, on French territory, under French law. That also explains the twin requirements of establishment and writing, and why a serious mandate provides security: the representative takes on real exposure and has to cover it.

The marketplace case, in both directions

Article L. 541-10-9-1 covers persons subject to EPR under Article L. 541-10 or Article L. 541-10-9. That second reference is the one for online intermediation platforms that facilitate distance sales or the delivery of products on behalf of third-party sellers and are required, on that basis, to provide for or contribute to the management of the resulting waste.

First direction: a platform not established in France is itself obligated. A marketplace falling within Article L. 541-10-9 and not established in France must appoint its own France-established representative. The obligation therefore does not stop at brands and manufacturers: it reaches intermediaries too.

Second direction: a France-established platform can cover your products. The text provides that the appointment obligation is treated as satisfied for products in respect of which a person covered by Article L. 541-10-9 and established in France ensures compliance with the EPR obligations. In practice, where a France-established platform genuinely takes on compliance for the products it sells for you, that perimeter is covered.

Two common-sense caveats on that second point. The cover is per product and per stream, not global: a platform handling the packaging of your shipments is not handling the WEEE stream for your devices. And it only holds for that channel: the moment you sell elsewhere, your own store, another marketplace, a French distributor, the uncovered perimeter is yours again. Confirm it in writing with the platform rather than treating it as a working assumption.

Your file carries no representative: the regularisation path

A frequent case, and rarely addressed. Eco-organisms have long required a French counterpart to open a membership, which is why a producer with no establishment in France generally cannot complete a registration alone. Even so, some reached a membership and an IDU before 10 July 2026 without a representative being recorded on the file. That position no longer satisfies the statute: the membership exists, but appointing a representative is now required by law.

Regularisation runs in five steps, and the IDU does not have to be lost: it is a file update, not a re-registration.

1. Identify a France-established representative for the streams concerned, and check it covers your whole perimeter rather than a single stream.
2. Conclude the written mandate, with an identified subrogation scope, an effective date and a duration.
3. Send the mandate to the eco-organism so it updates your membership: that transmission is what makes the representative exist on the file.
4. Have the representative sign or take over the membership contract, stream by stream, with each eco-organism concerned.
5. Let the eco-organism update the membership data in SYDEREP, the ADEME register, so the published IDU reflects the new arrangement.

Starting from scratch follows the same path without the takeover step, and the IDU is generally published within two to three weeks per stream. Changing representative is a neighbouring but distinct question, covered in our guide on switching French EPR representative without losing your IDU.

How it interacts with PPWR, and why the Omnibus will not save you

Two texts overlap, and they do not cover the same ground.

The Omnibus proposal (COM(2025) 982) would suspend the Article 45 representative obligation for some EU-established producers. It is not adopted, the Council discontinued negotiations on that suspension in June 2026 (Parliament pursues only a narrower version), and more importantly it does not touch French law. For products made available on the French market, the obligation is now expressly set out in statute, whatever becomes of the European text. An EU producer counting on the Omnibus to avoid France is reading the wrong instrument. Our PPWR timeline 2026-2040 tracks where the proposal stands.

What it means for your mandate contract

If you already have a representative, there is a simple test: reread the template. A contract drafted before July 2026 and left unchanged almost certainly says the representative acts in the name and on behalf of the producer, that the producer remains the obligated party, and that there is no subrogation. That drafting now describes the regime for producers established in France, not yours.

Four points belong in an up-to-date mandate:

• The scope of the statutory subrogation under Article L. 541-10-9-1: which streams, which obligations.
• Its effective date and prospective character, with the pre-mandate period addressed explicitly.
• The duration of the mandate and how it ends, including what happens to the IDU.
• The security attached, as the counterpart of the exposure the representative takes on.

On our side that last point takes the form of a refundable security deposit, calibrated on your estimated annual eco-contributions, held separately and returned at the end of the mandate net of sums due. Our fee is a fixed annual amount per stream, from €190 excl. VAT per year for a stream under an eco-organism flat-rate regime, confirmed by written quote within one business day, with a one-time setup per stream. We take no percentage and no margin on eco-contributions, and none on eco-organism membership fees either. The detail is on our pricing page.

What to do now

1. Settle the establishment question. Do you have a legal entity in France, or only sales into France? The answer drives everything else.
2. Map your streams. A consumer catalogue typically touches two to four: packaging, often WEEE or batteries, sometimes textile or furniture. The eco-contribution simulator gives an order of magnitude stream by stream.
3. Check your existing memberships. Direct membership with no representative, or a representative on file? If it is the former, plan the five-step regularisation above.
4. Audit your mandate contract, if you have one, against the four points listed above.
5. Confirm in writing what each platform actually covers, product by product and stream by stream, before relying on the exemption clause.

If you want the position on your own facts, tell us your streams and channels and you will get a fixed written quote within one business day.

Sources & references

The wording of the obligation is that of law n° 2026-602 of 8 July 2026 as published in the Journal officiel n° 0159 of 9 July 2026. This is not legal advice. Verified 4 August 2026.

• LOI n° 2026-602 du 8 juillet 2026 visant à réduire l'impact environnemental de l'industrie textile, Légifrance, article 5, 2°, creating Article L. 541-10-9-1 du Code de l'environnement (NOR TECX2407166L), in force 10 July 2026
• JORF n° 0159 of 9 July 2026, Légifrance
• Article L. 541-10 du Code de l'environnement (general EPR framework), Légifrance
• Article L. 541-10-9 du Code de l'environnement (marketplace obligations), Légifrance
• Cabinet Gossement, analysis of law n° 2026-602 of 8 July 2026
• Cabinet Gossement, analysis of the EcoDDS ruling of 10 November 2023 (n° 449213)
• Ministry for Ecological Transition, FAQ on applying the EPR reform to marketplaces (Article L. 541-10-9)
• Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (PPWR), EUR-Lex, Article 45, applicable 12 August 2026
• SYDEREP, public producer register (ADEME)