Question 17185 — tourism and leisure

Summary

Mr. Jean-François Portarrieu draws the attention of the Minister of the Economy and Finance to the subject of “automatic” responsibility weighing on travel agents and tour operators. Indeed, as part of the first reading in the National Assembly of the so-called PACTE bill, liability “as of right” was established for professionals marketing a travel service. This measure results from the transposition of the European Package Travel Directive (DEVF) which some describe as over-transposition. This directive provides, on the part of the organizer or seller of a package trip, a level of liability “for non-compliance with the contract”. However, within the framework of the PACTE bill, France, alone in this case in Europe, wished to transform this responsibility into liability “as of right” thus raising the initial level of the directive in a significant way, and even excessively for a large number of tourism stakeholders. Thus, this “over-transposition” could lead judges to condemn professionals automatically without going into the specific case and verifying that damage has been suffered or without verifying that this damage has a link with the execution of the travel contract. This would pose numerous difficulties for tourism stakeholders and would weaken a economic sector which represents more than 7% of French GDP. The Senate, at first reading, voted to delete this provision, thus reducing the responsibility of French travel professionals to a level identical to that of their European colleagues. This new wording tends to eliminate a competitiveness gap in a highly competitive international market while not lowering consumer protection. He It seems obvious that the traveler remains well protected before, during and after their trip. Thus, he would like to know his position regarding the new wording resulting from the Senate and to know if the Government would consider removing “as of right” responsibility in the final text.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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