Risk Assessment Under French Law: A Business Requirement

The Growing Importance of the Notion of Safety

The increasing number of cases related to product safety and the abundant media coverage surrounding them reflect the ever-growing importance of the issue of safety and the increasing concern of Member States to ensure public health protection.

The attention to safety is paramount at all stages of a product's "life," not only at the product's manufacturing stage¹ but also further up the chain, i.e., once the product has been introduced on the market and sold to a consumer. The producer/distributor is liable for the safety of the product he sells during the entire "life" of the product. Downstream, i.e., once a damage has occurred as a result of a defective consumer good, a complete set of French legal civil and criminal provisions can be enforced against the producer/distributor, whether a legal entity and/or an individual, and these sanctions can turn out to be very severe.