Consumer mediation in France: only 45% of requests are admissible, mostly because the business never answered the complaint
The 2025 report of France's national consumer-mediation commission (CECMC), presented on 19 December 2025, puts a number on what many small businesses live through without noticing: a complaint left without a written reply blocks access to the mediator, and the commission proposes opening it after two months of silence.
According to the summary published on 19 December 2025 by L'Officiel de la Médiation Professionnelle, about 210,000 requests were handled in 2024, and nearly 80% of mediations taken to the end reach an agreement. But only 45% of requests were declared admissible: in most cases the consumer could not show prior contact with the business, usually because the business had not replied. To fix this, the report proposes allowing access to the mediator after two months without a written reply to a complaint. It also notes that the real processing time averages more than 140 days against a legal limit of 90.
For a branch, the written complaint is often the first difficult conversation: it arrives by message, at the counter or through a form, and gets lost between two urgent tasks. An assistant can acknowledge receipt, recall the documents that help, log the request in the file and flag it to the person who has to answer; that person replies on the substance and decides what follows, including any recourse to a mediator.
For AppH
- A quick acknowledgement and a follow-up list of pending complaints keep silence from settling in through plain overload.
- Every request is logged in one place with its date, which helps the team see what is waiting for an answer.
Against / the honest limit
- AppH settles no complaint, gives no advice on the customer's rights or on mediation, and does not answer in the branch's place: the substantive reply stays human.
- The 45% figure comes from a summary of the report, not the full text, and covers consumer mediation (private customers); the two-month idea is only a recommendation, not a rule in force.
An avoided dispute often starts with an answer given in time. An assistant can keep the door open; a person at the branch decides.
Reviewed by a human at AppH