In September, the French Senate voted for a complete ban of indoor tanning in France as part of a broad-ranging bill on health matters. On 25 November, the Social Affairs Commission of the French National Assembly turned this ban down. A final vote on the health bill will take place in the coming weeks.
The part of the health bill that deals with indoor tanning and that was adopted by the Social Affairs Commission of the French National Assembly includes the following points:
- Artificial Tanning is a legal activity
- Mandatory ID checks in order to identify customers below the age of 18
- Advertising is allowed but certain requirements need to be taken into account, e.g. health benefits aren’t allowed to be mentioned
- Standards on how to inform customers of the risks of using a sunbed will be introduced and defined in a separate bill
- Sales of sunbeds to private people will not be allowed
- Promotion and sale of a “tanning flatrate” (incl. free tanning) will not be allowed
- An authorisation regime for new point of sales might be introduced in the future
In comparison with the original text, this shows that the Social Affairs Commission has taken into consideration that adequate consumer protection can be fully guaranteed by the enforcement of the existing measures, backed up where necessary by controls and sanctions against individual offenders. Moreover, 22.000 jobs were at stake and can now be saved in France.
