Telephone canvassing is one of the most frequent nuisances for French consumers. Fortunately, there are several legal and effective solutions to drastically reduce this phenomenon. Here is a comprehensive guide to blocking telemarketing calls in France.
Step 1: Register on Bloctel
Bloctel (bloctel.gouv.fr) is the official French government telephone canvassing opposition system. Since 1 June 2016, professionals engaged in telephone canvassing have had a legal obligation to check that the numbers they canvass do not appear on this list. Registration is free and takes a few minutes. Note that Bloctel does not protect against scams — only against lawful commercial canvassing.
Step 2: Use your carrier's anti-spam tools
All major French carriers offer tools to filter unwanted calls. Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free all provide varying levels of call filtering in their plans, from automatic blocking of robocalls to real-time identification of suspicious numbers.
Step 3: Use smartphone filtering features
Most modern smartphones include native call-blocking features. On iPhone, enabling "Silence Unknown Callers" in Settings sends calls from numbers not in your contacts directly to voicemail. On Android, the built-in spam filter in the Phone app automatically identifies suspicious incoming calls.
Step 4: Report violators
If you are contacted by a professional despite being registered on Bloctel, report the number on the Bloctel site. Also report numbers on TelCheck to alert the community. Your report helps other users avoid the same calls.