Legal Hemp and CBD in France: What the Rules Say

In France, legal hemp and CBD sit inside a written rulebook rather than a grey market. The dividing line is the THC threshold, set in national law and tested against European case law. Claims about sleep, pain or withdrawal are documented in the literature to varying degrees, and the food and veterinary positions are separate questions again.

A French information site, legal hemp and CBD, gathers the legal texts, the documented uses and the botany in one place for francophone readers. Its material is organised around three areas: the regulatory framework, the uses recorded in the literature with their limits, and the plant itself, including fibre hemp and the difference between cannabis and CBD.

What is the THC threshold in French law?

The threshold is a concentration, not a quantity sold. French rules distinguish hemp varieties from drug-type cannabis by the delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol content of the plant, and the permitted figure has been fixed by ministerial order rather than by statute alone. The current French order on hemp sets the limit for the plant and for products derived from it, and the figure has moved over time as the European common catalogue of hemp varieties has been updated.

The European Union's common catalogue lists the varieties that may be grown, and the French order refers to that list. A product above the threshold falls outside the hemp regime, whatever the label says. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in 2020, in Case C-663/18, that CBD extracted from the whole hemp plant is not a narcotic drug under the 1961 Single Convention, because it does not have the psychoactive effects associated with THC. That judgment concerned the free movement of goods, and it did not create a French retail licence.

For readers in the United Kingdom, the parallel is instructive but not identical. The Home Office controls THC as a controlled drug, and the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, available on legislation.gov.uk, set out the schedules. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs published advice on consumer CBD products in 2021, and the UK Food Standards Agency has run a novel food authorisation process for CBD extracts since 2020.

What does the European case law actually decide?

The 2020 judgment is narrower than it is often reported. The Court held that a Member State may not prohibit the marketing of CBD lawfully produced in another Member State when it comes from the whole plant and not only from the fibre or seeds, because CBD is not a narcotic drug within the meaning of the Single Convention. The Court left room for national rules on public health, and it did not rule on food status, on advertising, or on veterinary use.

A second line of cases concerns the classification of the plant material itself. The distinction between fibre hemp and drug-type cannabis turns on the THC content, and the Court has accepted that national thresholds may be used provided they are proportionate and do not go beyond what is necessary. French courts have applied that reasoning unevenly, and the Conseil d'Etat has been asked to review several orders.

The table is a summary of the texts, not a substitute for them. The dates matter because the French order has been amended more than once, and because the European novel food catalogue has been updated as member states notified their positions.

Is CBD a food ingredient or a medicine?

In France, CBD placed in food falls under the novel food regulation, Regulation (EU) 2015/2283, because there is no history of consumption before 15 May 1997 for the isolated compound. The French agency ANSES has published opinions on the subject, and the European Commission's novel food catalogue records the status of CBD as a novel food. A product that makes a medicinal claim moves into a different regime, and the French medicines agency ANSM has issued warnings about products sold with therapeutic claims.

Labelling is a separate problem. The French consumer code requires that the label not mislead, and the DGCCRF has published guidance on CBD products. The THC content declared on the label must match the batch, and the analytical method matters. A product sold as a food supplement cannot carry a disease claim, and a product sold as a medicine needs a marketing authorisation.

For comparison, the UK position is set by the Food Standards Agency, which published its CBD novel food guidance in 2020 and has maintained a public list of products with valid applications. The UK Health Security Agency, in its 2023 report on the evidence, noted the limited quality of much of the consumer product testing.

What do the documented uses show?

The literature is uneven. For sleep, several small trials and reviews report modest effects on anxiety-related sleep problems, but the samples are short and the doses vary. For fibromyalgia, a small number of trials have been published, and a 2020 review in a peer-reviewed journal found the evidence insufficient to recommend CBD as a treatment. For smoking cessation, the picture is similar: a randomised trial published in 2018 found no significant benefit of CBD over placebo for prolonged abstinence, although a later trial reported a reduction in cigarette consumption.

For alcohol use, the evidence is mostly preclinical, and the clinical trials are few. For pregnancy, the guidance is clear: the NHS advises against cannabis and CBD in pregnancy because of the risk to the developing brain, and that advice was restated in NHS guidance published in 2022. For palliative care, some reviews report benefit for pain and spasticity in multiple sclerosis, but the products studied are usually pharmaceutical formulations, not retail oils.

Oil and labelling deserve a section of their own. The concentration printed on a bottle is often the total CBD in the bottle, not per drop, and the difference matters for anyone comparing products. The French information site Nessnet covers this in French, alongside the botanical history of the plant and the difference between fibre hemp and drug-type cannabis.

What about animals?

Veterinary use is governed separately. In France, the rules on medicated feed and veterinary medicinal products apply, and CBD is not authorised as a veterinary medicine. The French agency ANSES has not approved a therapeutic claim for dogs or cats. The position in the United Kingdom is similar: the Veterinary Medicines Directorate has stated that CBD products for animals require a veterinary marketing authorisation, and none is currently held.

Owners who give a retail oil to a dog or cat are therefore using an unauthorised product. The documented evidence in animals is mostly small studies on pain and epilepsy, and the doses used in those studies are not the doses printed on retail bottles. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has published guidance reminding members that prescribing an unauthorised product carries responsibility.