French trade groups are seeking to overturn the ban on the sale of CBD food supplements in an attempted re-run of the successful 2022 removal of the ban on the sale of flowers.
The three main trade groups representing the €200m French industry are set to lodge an appeal to the Conseil d’État (Council of State) against the recent oppressive move by the Ministry of Agriculture, Agri-Food and Food Sovereignty (MASA).
This DGAL Control Plan, which came into force late last month, has led to numerous CBD retailers removing food products from their shelves, whilst enforcement teams have sanctioned other outlets.
MASA is referencing the European Commission (EC) Novel Food rules, which have yet to determine whether CBD is ‘safe’ and therefore suitable for human consumption, as grounds for its crackdown.
However, a joint legal action by the industry groups – UIVEC, AFPC and UPCBD is expected to be launched to the Conseil d’État – the country’s highest administrative court – within days.
Their template for action is the council’s 2022 ruling, which overturned a previous ban on the sale of CBD flowers after determining the Government had acted unlawfully.
If this new challenge proceeds at the same pace, then a suspension of the MASA action could take place before the end of the month, with a final determination possible within a year.
Speaking to Business of Cannabis, Zoé Demange, co-founder and General Manager of Union of Industrialists for the Valorisation of Hemp Extracts (UIVEC), said it had been in discussions with the authorities on a number of occasions over the last few weeks.
And, with no signs of a compromise emerging, she said: “We will be looking to lodge our appeal within the next week-or-so, at this stage this seems like the only way we will be able to secure a positive resolution on behalf of our members.”
Novel Food, And Safety
In a statement to Business of Cannabis, MASA laid out the reasons for its enforcement action saying that ‘CBD has no history of consumption within the EU and is consequently… considered a novel food’.
In a wider industry press release, it also made a number of misleading claims, suggesting CBD has ‘psychoactive effects’, that it has a ‘lack of proven safety’ and is associated with a ‘rise in reported poisonings’.
These have all been firmly refuted by the industry in a joint press release which describes the MASA statement as ‘inaccurate and misleading’, saying ‘EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) has never concluded that CBD is dangerous’.
They outlined how the Kanavape decision has determined that CBD is non-narcotic and that the references to poisonings were related to synthetic cannabinoids, ‘sometimes combined with excessive THC levels…which have nothing to do with the CBD naturally present in hemp’.
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This stance was echoed by Francesco Mirizzi, Managing Director at the European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA) in an email conversation with Business of Cannabis he said: “The press release published by the French Ministry contains an important inaccuracy regarding EFSA’s assessment of CBD safety.
“The text suggests that EFSA has been unable to demonstrate any safe use of CBD. This is not correct.”
He went on to say that the preliminary designation of ‘provisional safe intake level of approximately 2mg/day for adults’ is a significant scientific development that should be acknowledged when discussing consumer safety and regulatory proportionality’.
Adding: “In this context, EIHA would also have appreciated a more pragmatic and proportionate enforcement approach from the French authorities.”
Is CBD Safe?
Despite years of back and forth, the Novel Food regulatory process is still gestating, with 14 Novel Food applications awaiting determination.
In 2022, EFSA stated it was unable to conclude that CBD is safe due to insufficient scientific data and the last announcement from the European Commission, in February, stated that there are still gaps in the data supporting the safety profile of CBD.
Earlier this year, it suggested an interim safety level of 2mg a day for a 70kg adult, over the age of 25, way below the comparative benchmarks in markets elsewhere, such as Canada, where the upper limit is 200 mg per day.
In response to Business of Cannabis, the EC said: “To date, the Commission has not granted any authorisation for CBD as a novel food, as so far, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has not yet delivered an opinion on any of the 14 applications confirming the safety of these foods for human consumption.
“Therefore, CBD is not authorised in the EU as novel food.”
Co-operation terminated
The Conseil d’État’s flower determination in late 2022 helped deliver a period of relative stability in the French CBD space with investment by farms and retailers and the filing of nearly 800 products on the state-sponsored Compl’Alim registry.
However, in June 2025, French food authority ANSES gave its first indication it was concerned about the industry’s direction of travel.
It said there had been cases of poisoning and warned that as many as eight out of 10 CBD products tested had CBD concentrations different from those stated.
At the same time, ANSES was also registering its concerns over the potential toxicity of CBD, and as a result of these submissions, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) recently made a preliminary affirmation, in a move which could further damage the industry and especially the cosmetic CBD skin care sector
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While some in the industry say the ECHA determination and the crackdown on CBD food products are coincidental, there are others who see it as the latest step in a concerted effort by the French to stymie the CBD market.
Back in 2020, the European Court of Justice established that CBD is non-narcotic in the Kanavape case, which had been propelled to the courts by the French state.
Ms Demange contends that the recent action is more likely to do with the turmoil in French politics, saying: “We had managed to implement this joint framework, but the people who implemented it in the administration changed. I think there have been more than five agricultural ministers in the last few years.”
Despite the recent events, she remains optimistic about the future of CBD in France and Europe, saying: “This two milligram per day dose is a provisional one, and this is pending the data from each specific dossier. So I’m still confident that there will be enough data in those dossiers to have a proper dose per day.”
As things stand with EFSA still assessing this, there is little chance of a final determination before the end of 2026, and then there will be a further period of delay before a final EC determination.
How the 2021 ban on CBD Flowers played out
December 30, 2021: the French Government prohibits the sale of raw hemp flowers and leaves.
January 24, 2022: an emergency judge at the Conseil d’État suspends the ban, questioning its legality and proportionality. This follows an application from the CBD industry, which argues that CBD is non-narcotic and that the ban would destroy a large part of their business.
December 29, 2022: the Conseil d’État annuls the ban, saying that CBD is not a narcotic, that there is no demonstrable public-health risk from low-THC flowers and leaves, and a general and absolute prohibition on their marketing is unlawful and disproportionate.
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