France’s cookie fines and influencer rules

CNIL enforcement on cookies and inbox ads

Documented: official source

The CNIL’s Google decision targets two practices: ads displayed between emails in Gmail, treated as direct marketing requiring consent, and cookies set during Google account creation without valid consent. The SHEIN decision concerns cookies placed on visitors’ devices as soon as they arrived on the site, before any choice.

The influencer law

Secondary source

France’s 2023 law defines commercial influencers as people who, for payment, promote goods, services or causes to the public online. Paid partnerships must be disclosed, some product categories cannot be promoted, and influencers living outside the EU who address a French audience must appoint a representative in the EU.

Political and social issue ads: EU rules and platform exits

Documented: official source

Regulation (EU) 2024/900 on the transparency and targeting of political advertising has applied since 10 October 2025 and covers France. It also bars political advertising from sponsors outside the EU in the three months before an election or referendum.

Meta responded by ending political, electoral and social issue ads in the EU. Its newsroom update says these ads stopped being delivered on 6 October 2025. Social issue ads are a wider category than election ads, so charities, campaign groups and brands running cause-led messages in France need a route that does not depend on Meta's political ad products.

AI-generated creative: labelling from 2 August 2026

Documented: official source

Article 50 of the EU AI Act has applied since 2 August 2026. Deepfakes, and AI-generated or AI-manipulated text published to inform the public on matters of public interest, must be labelled unless a person has reviewed the text and holds editorial responsibility. Providers of generative AI systems that were already on the market have until 2 December 2026 for the machine-readable marking duty.

The Commission published a voluntary Code of Practice on marking and labelling AI-generated content on 10 June 2026, including optional icons that deployers can use. For advertisers the practical step is a creative log: which assets were generated or altered with AI, who reviewed them, and where a label appears.

Where we see opportunity

FOCUSADS view

Strict consent enforcement favours advertisers with strong first-party relationships: loyalty programmes, logged-in retail media and consented email. Creators who follow the influencer law carefully are lower-risk partners, which gives compliant agencies and brands a stronger negotiating position.

How FOCUSADS applies this

FOCUSADS view

France plans run a policy screen per channel before budget is allocated: political and social issue messaging, regulated categories and AI-generated creative are checked first, and channels that cannot carry the message are removed with the reason shown.