AI disclosure requirements in France: what applies from 2 August 2026

The EU AI Act's transparency obligations are a Union-wide regulation, so the substance is the same in France as everywhere in the EU: from 2 August 2026, AI systems that interact with people must disclose they're AI, synthetic media must carry machine-readable marking, and deepfakes and certain AI-generated public-interest text must be labeled. What differs country by country is who enforces it, in what language your users encounter it, and how quickly complaints turn into questions — which is what this page covers for France.

Enforcement in France

France had not enacted its Article 70 authority designations at the time of review. A government scheme published on 9 September 2025 proposes a sectoral model: the DGCCRF (the consumer-protection and fraud-control directorate) as overall coordinator and single point of contact, the CNIL as the de-facto lead wherever AI processes personal data or biometrics, Arcom for audiovisual media and deepfakes, plus ACPR (finance) and ANSSI (cybersecurity) in their sectors — but the scheme still awaits parliamentary adoption, so the supervisory map is proposed, not final. Article 50 applies from 2 August 2026 regardless, with penalties up to €15M or 3% of worldwide turnover, and the CNIL has already published AI Act Q&A and guidance while running a voluntary AI support programme.

The four duties, as they show up on your site

• Article 50(1) — chatbot disclosure. Any AI system interacting with visitors must make that clear no later than the first interaction, in a clear and distinguishable way. A line in your terms doesn't satisfy it.
• Article 50(2) — machine-readable marking. AI-generated audio, images, video, and text must be marked in a machine-readable, detectable format. For generative systems already on the market before 2 Aug 2026, this specific duty has a transition until 2 Dec 2026 — the rest does not.
• Article 50(3) — emotion recognition & biometric categorisation. People exposed must be informed the system is operating.
• Article 50(4) — deepfake and AI-text labels. Visible disclosure for deepfakes, and for AI-generated or manipulated text published to inform the public on matters of public interest.

France-specific practicalities

• The DGCCRF investigates misleading commercial practices today — an AI chatbot presenting as human support sits squarely in its existing playbook even before AI Act designations land
• If your assistant touches personal data (it almost certainly does), the CNIL is already competent under the GDPR — its AI guidance is the closest thing France has to official expectations right now
• Deepfake and synthetic-media duties (Art. 50(4)) map to Arcom's proposed remit — publishers serving French audiences should watch its guidance specifically
• Keep the French-language first-interaction screenshot in your evidence file; a disclosure only in English on a .fr storefront is a weak notice

Disclosure language should match your user-facing language. For a site serving France in French, a first-message line such as "Vous discutez avec un assistant IA" (you're chatting with an AI assistant) is the pattern to aim for — visible at first interaction, not tucked into mentions légales.

Common questions