In France, Citeo's eco-modulation adds 30% to one brand basket while the Triman label is being written out of the law

The AGEC rulebook in October 2026

The AGEC law, n° 2020-105 of 10 February 2020, works through articles of the Code de l’environnement, and each article needs a decree to bite. That structure is why French packaging rules can be in force on paper and empty in practice, as the fruit and vegetable case shows. The SPI Regulation Tracker holds three French rules among its 79: PR-FR-001 for the 3R framework, PR-FR-002 for the dated bans and PR-FR-003 for Triman and Info-tri. Exhibit 2 sets each AGEC pillar against its implementing text and its status on 20 October 2026.

Two changes since 2024 rewrote parts of this map. The law of 30 April 2025 adapting French law to EU law removed article 23 of the Climate and Resilience law and moved the recyclability obligation for styrenic packaging from 2025 to 2030, according to Citeo’s polystyrene roadmap, dated September 2025. And the 2026 adaptation bill, filed in the Senate on 10 November 2025 under the accelerated procedure, carries the next round, including the Triman replacement in its article 48 (Sénat dossier pjl25-118).

Ten years of dates, 2020 to 2030

Exhibit 3 places the AGEC decrees, the court rulings, the EU rules and the Citeo fee cycle on one line. Most of the business deadlines cluster in two windows: 2026 to 2027, when the reuse quota and the fee changes bite, and 2028 to 2030, when the EU label and the PPWR design rules arrive.

Single-use plastic: the 3R targets and the 2040 goal

Article L. 541-10-17, created by article 7 of the AGEC law, sets the goal of ending single-use plastic packaging on the French market by 2040 and requires five-year decrees on the way (PR-FR-001). The first, Décret n° 2021-517 of 29 April 2021, set three objectives for 31 December 2025: a 20% cut in single-use plastic packaging measured against 2018 tonnage, “dont au moins 50 % obtenus par recours au réemploi et à la réutilisation d’emballages”; a move towards eliminating 100% of unnecessary packaging, defined as packaging with no essential technical function; and a recycling channel for all such packaging by 1 January 2025 (AIDA text). Since 1 January 2023 a second indicator also counts sales units.

The decree itself sets no penalty on companies. Its pressure arrives through article 5, which tells eco-organisms to reflect the objectives in their fee modulation, and through the dated bans (PR-FR-001). That is why Citeo’s 25% malus on small drink formats and on plastic grouping wraps, both raised from 10% in 2025, matters more to a brand’s budget than the target itself (Citeo guide 2026).

The 2040 goal survived a direct attempt to remove it. During the Senate debate on the 2026 adaptation bill, amendment 173 rect. quater proposed deleting the first paragraph of L. 541-10-17 on the ground that it conflicts with the PPWR; the committee and the government both opposed it and it was rejected (Sénat, amendment of 17 February 2026).

Reuse: the 10% threshold in 2027

Décret n° 2022-507 of 8 April 2022 is the only AGEC rule that sets a hard percentage on each producer. It applies to any producer placing at least 10,000 units of packaged products on the market a year, and it can be met individually, collectively or through an eco-organism (article R. 541-351). The share is counted per packaging unit, primary, secondary or tertiary, or by an equivalent capacity of 0.5 litre or 0.5 kg where the producer can justify it (article R. 541-350).

The gap is wide. Reuse reached 2.2% of packaging in 2023, the first year reporting was compulsory, and the June 2025 review warned the figure may be incomplete (PR-FR-001). Citeo now collects the data: its 2026 guide puts reuse reporting, splitting packaging into reusable, reused and single-use, in March 2027 for 2026 placements (SPI fee-market note, France). The scheme reports EUR 35.1 million committed to reuse calls for projects in 2025 and EUR 175 million since 2023 for reuse and collection support (Citeo Rapport d’activité 2025).

The decree’s sanction articles cover other AGEC duties, such as free bottles and reusable tableware, and SPI has not yet confirmed a penalty specific to missing the D. 541-352 share. The cost of a shortfall is therefore indirect: no bonus, a weaker position with retailers and, from 2030, the PPWR’s own reuse targets for transport and grouped packaging, which attach to formats rather than to a national share (PR-FR-001 interactions).

Triman and Info-tri: required today, contested at EU level

Article L. 541-9-3 requires products under extended producer responsibility to carry a sorting sign and an instruction on how to sort or return them, and Décret n° 2021-835 of 29 June 2021 puts that into effect (PR-FR-003). For household packaging the eco-organism drafts the instruction, the producer prints it, and new versions must be applied within 12 months of their validity date, with any sell-off period capped at six months.

The Commission’s case has two limbs. National labelling rules for goods lawfully sold elsewhere in the EU are measures of equivalent effect to a quantitative restriction under Article 34 TFEU, and France did not notify the measure at the draft stage as Directive (EU) 2015/1535 requires (IP/25/1834). SPI has not yet confirmed a case number or a hearing date at the Court of Justice.

France’s response is the 2026 adaptation bill. The Senate’s European affairs committee reported on 21 January 2026 that article 48 would have the Triman scheme “soit remplacé par le dispositif harmonisé européen”, but also that this does not cure the breach in the meantime. The Senate adopted the bill on 18 February 2026 and sent it to the Assemblée nationale on 20 February, where the economic affairs committee was seized; the Assemblée’s dossier shows no vote by 20 October 2026.

The EU side is not ready either. The PPWR’s harmonised material label can apply from 12 August 2028 at the earliest, and Packaging Europe reported on 20 August 2026 that the Commission had missed its own target date for the labelling implementing act. The PPWR after August 2026 piece notes that the Commission’s guidance treats the EU labelling system as exhaustive outside deposit packaging, so a national mark printed next to the EU label would itself raise a question.

"Recyclable" and other environmental wording

Article L. 541-9-1, from article 13 of the AGEC law, requires producers to publish the environmental characteristics of their products, and Décret n° 2022-748 of 29 April 2022 sets the wording (AIDA). The information sits on a free digital product sheet, available at purchase, and the ministry’s FAQ says a non-selectable PDF does not comply. The duty phased in by size: turnover of EUR 50 million and 25,000 units from 1 January 2023, EUR 20 million and 10,000 units from 2024 and EUR 10 million and 10,000 units from 2025, with both tests cumulative (ministry FAQ, November 2025).

The five recyclability criteria are efficient collection across the territory, sorting, the absence of substances that disrupt recycling, recycled output above the mass threshold and recycling at industrial scale with sufficient quality and outlets (R. 541-221). The criteria line up closely with Citeo’s maluses: a pack that triggers a “perturbateur” malus, such as a carbon-black tray or a PETg sleeve on a PET bottle, will struggle to meet the third criterion, so the fee signal and the wording rule point the same way.

On 27 September 2026 the EU’s green claims directive began to apply, after a transposition deadline of 27 March 2026 (Directive (EU) 2024/825, Article 4(1)). The French 2026 adaptation bill, as filed, would rewrite the fourth paragraph of L. 541-9-1 with effect from that date, keeping the ban on “biodégradable” and “respectueux de l’environnement” (article 21 of bill n° 118). SPI has not yet confirmed how France has transposed the directive while the bill is pending.

A note on the record: SPI’s PPWR 2030 format restrictions piece reports that the Conseil d’État annulled Décret n° 2023-478 on 8 November 2024. That decree is the fresh produce exemption list, covered in the next section, not the claims decree. AIDA lists Décret n° 2022-748 on environmental wording as in force with no amending text.

Fruit and vegetables: a ban without a list

Since 1 January 2022, article L. 541-15-10 III has required retailers to sell whole fresh fruit and vegetables without plastic packaging, with exemptions for lots of 1.5 kg or more and for produce at risk of deterioration in bulk (PR-FR-002). The law left the list of exempt produce to a decree, and that list has twice been struck down (Exhibit 8).

The first ruling turned on the scope of the list. The law let the government exempt only produce at risk of deterioration in bulk, and the decree had included produce that did not necessarily present that risk (Conseil d’État press release, 9 December 2022). The court added, at point 8 of the decision, that the annulment made the ban in the sixteenth paragraph of L. 541-15-10 III inapplicable, without manifestly excessive consequences, so it did not delay the annulment’s effect. The applicants included the trade bodies Plastalliance, Polyvia, Felcoop and the fresh produce interprofession.

The second ruling, brought by Plastalliance and Elipso, was procedural: the Commission had told France the draft concerned a matter covered by the proposed PPWR, which required adoption to be postponed until 15 December 2023, and France adopted the decree on 20 June 2023 (PPWR 2030 format restrictions piece). The 2026 bill would end the national duty altogether, according to the Senate’s European affairs committee, leaving the field to Annex V of the PPWR from 2030.

Citeo 2026: what eco-modulation does to a bill

Citeo and Léko are the approved eco-organisms for household packaging and graphic paper until 31 December 2029 (SPI France note). Citeo’s 2026 fee has three parts per sales unit (UVC): a weight part priced per material, a per-unit litter contribution by sector and a per-unit reuse contribution, and the bonuses and maluses then apply as a percentage of that unit’s total (Citeo guide 2026). Exhibit 9 summarises the 2026 modulation grid.

Five maluses were removed for 2026, including those on PET bottles with glass marbles, mineral oils and opaque rigid PET, and PVC is now charged through the tariff itself at 210.01 euro cents per kg (Citeo guide 2026). Timing matters for the reduction bonus: a lighter pack introduced before 1 April 2026 counts for the full year, one introduced between 1 April and 30 September needs two declaration lines, and a change after 30 September counts only from 2027.

The recycled plastic prime comes from a ministerial arrêté of 5 September 2025, published on 7 September and in force on 1 January 2026. It pays EUR 450 per tonne of recycled plastic from another EPR stream and EUR 550 per tonne from the same stream; for hard-to-recycle resins in contact-sensitive packaging, including PP, HDPE, LDPE, coloured and opaque PET and non-expanded polystyrene, it pays EUR 1,000 per tonne, with a derogation at EUR 550 for 2026 and 2027 (AIDA). The prime can be combined with the reduction, grouping and small-format maluses, but not with a disruptor malus (Citeo guide 2026).

To show the effect, SPI priced a basket of four household products of 1 million units each through the 2026 tariff (Exhibit 10). The weights are SPI assumptions, chosen so that each product meets one modulation line, and readers should replace them with their own in the SPI EPR & Plastic Tax Calculator.

SPI calculation: for the drink, 20,000 kg x EUR 0.70 + 2,000 kg x EUR 0.7701 = EUR 15,540.20, plus EUR 1,433.00 litter and EUR 140.00 reuse, gives EUR 17,113.20, and the 25% malus adds EUR 4,278.30. For the tray, 17,000 kg at EUR 0.7701 is EUR 13,091.70, the per-unit parts add EUR 1,055.00, and the 100% malus doubles EUR 14,146.70 to EUR 28,293.40. The bonuses are smaller: EUR 1,557.95 on the cereal box and EUR 51.62 on the jar label.

Three points stand out. First, weight is a poor guide to the fee: the jar is 314 of the basket’s 398 tonnes but 11.6% of the fee after modulation, while the tray is 17 tonnes and 39.3%. Second, the per-unit parts are 8.6% of the unmodulated bill, so very light packs sold in high volume pay a fee that weight cuts cannot reach. Third, maluses are multiplied by the whole unit contribution, so the 100% malus on a 17 g tray costs EUR 0.0141 per unit, more than the entire unmodulated fee on the glass jar at EUR 0.0084.

Scenarios: three versions of the same basket

Exhibit 11 runs the basket through a redesign case and a downside case. Both use only Citeo’s published 2026 rules and the September 2025 arrêté; the redesign case needs one stated assumption on the recycled plastic prime.

The swing from low to high is EUR 29,461.43 on the same four products and the same volumes, or 53.4% of the unmodulated bill. Most of it comes from two decisions a packaging team controls: the tray colour, worth EUR 14,146.70, and the sleeve, which takes the drink bottle from EUR 21,391.50 to EUR 32,398.28.

SPI calculation: in the high case the bottle’s unit total becomes EUR 18,513.30 with the sleeve weight, and the stacked 25% and 50% maluses multiply it by 1.75. Citeo’s guide says levels stack while two maluses at the same level do not, except the two 25% maluses (Citeo guide 2026).

The recycled plastic prime is the one uncertain input. The consultation draft of the arrêté set minimum recycled content thresholds for the EUR 450 and EUR 550 tiers, 25% for PET drink bottles until 2029, and SPI has not yet confirmed whether the published text pays on all incorporated tonnes or only those above the threshold. The range is EUR 2,750 to EUR 5,500 on the bottle.

SPI has not yet confirmed Citeo’s 2027 tariff against Citeo’s own guide. A compliance adviser reports that Citeo and Léko published 2027 tariffs on 30 September 2026, revised on 8 October, with Citeo’s eco-modulation unchanged; if that holds, the shape of Exhibit 11 carries into the 2027 declaration.

A change map for brand owners

The French rules move at different speeds and carry different costs, so a single compliance plan treats them badly. SPI sorts the six pillars of Exhibit 2 on two tests: is the rule’s direction settled, and does waiting cost money now (Exhibit 12).