Many of you will know that in January this year, France implemented repairability scoring for a handful of consumer electronic devices, including smartphones and laptops. The concept is simple: help consumers make informed choices by letting them know how repairable a product is at the point of purchase.
It’s a key milestone for the Right to Repair in Europe, but isn’t without limitations. From how easy it is to obtain a good grade to self-declared scores by manufacturers and no sanctions until 2022, it comes with challenges that are important to acknowledge and discuss.
@Chloe from the European Right to Repair campaign recently explored this topic in detail, hosting a webinar with experts from the French Ministry of the Environment, the French organisation Stop Planned Obsolescence (HOP) and the European environmental organisation ECOS.
They explained its development and implementation, the achievements and limitations, and what it means for the right to repair in Europe.
You can find the full webinar and a super useful overview of the new law over on the campaign’s website:
We also covered this in more depth on our podcast, where we spoke to experts from various European policy organisations and Jean-Paul Ventère, from the French Ministry of Ecology:
A small update on this…
The consumer rights organisation Consumer NZ (New Zealand’s equivalent of Which? in the UK or Test Achats in Belgium) has adopted France’s repairability index for smartphones and will now incorporate repairability into their product testing process:
Nice to see the index is already having some ripple effects!
The French Repair Index have now existed for about 3 years. Next year it’s going to change into the Durability Index. When you visit Indicereparabilite.fr you can see, that the bureau have reviewed around 1.400 items in 10 categories.
In 2026 a similar initiative is being introduced in Belgium. I think both initiatives are really good and needed ideas. I therefore want to dive deeper into the topic, so we can get the talk started with companies and politicians in Denmark.
I have found one 65 page report which covers the topic. Do you know any other resources which talks into the effect and results the initiative has given in France?
Also, is the index something which people trust? Crosschecking the repairability of the newest iPhone between Indicereparabilite.fr and iFixit comes out with quite a difference. The French score is 7,7 out of 10 while iFixit leaves it at a low 4 / 10.
I hope you can point me in direction of some valuable resources
The report from HOP that you mentioned is the most comprehensive review I know of. The European campaign produced a short summary of that report in case that’s useful.
