Starting from August 11, 2026, France will prohibit all commercial telemarketing calls to individuals who have not given their explicit prior consent. The reform, definitively adopted by the French Parliament in May 2025, is intended to strengthen protections against fraud and abusive sales practices. It marks a shift from the current “opt-out” system, embodied by the Bloctel platform, to an “opt-in” model requiring prior consent. In practical terms, companies and their subcontractors will no longer be allowed to contact prospective customers unless they can prove those individuals have explicitly agreed to be called.
The regulatory change, which directly affects Moroccan call centers, is fueling growing concern across the sector. Employee representatives warn of a social shockwave that could affect tens of thousands of workers. Major industry players, however, argue that telemarketing has already become a marginal segment of Morocco’s outsourcing sector and that the reform merely accelerates a transformation that has been underway for years.
Eight weeks before the deadline
Until the new law comes into force, the Bloctel system operates on the principle of presumed consent. Consumers who do not wish to receive sales calls must register on an opt-out list. From August 11 onward, however, the logic will be reversed: telemarketing will be prohibited by default and allowed only when consumers have given their prior, free, and explicit consent.
The reform comes in response to growing frustration among French consumers over unsolicited sales calls and the fraudulent practices associated with some prospecting campaigns. For companies specializing in telemarketing, the new rules represent a major shift.
In Morocco, where a significant share of call center activity has historically targeted the French market, questions are mounting over the future of companies whose business models still depend heavily on outbound calls.
“Telemarketing is the traditional segment that enabled the emergence of call centers in Morocco in the early 2000s”
For Ayoub Saoud, Secretary General of la Fédération nationale des centres d’appels et des métiers de l’offshoring (FNCAMO), the new regulations mark the end of an important chapter in the history of Moroccan offshoring. “Telemarketing is the traditional segment that gave rise to call centers in Morocco in the early 2000s,” he says.
According to Saoud, the sector comprises between 600 and 800 companies, most of them micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises whose primary, and sometimes sole, activity is telemarketing.
That specialization has now become the industry’s main vulnerability. “Telemarketers possess highly specific skills related to prospecting, opening calls, and handling objections. Redeploying them into roles such as technical support, customer service, or administrative processing is far from straightforward” Saoud emphasizes.
50,000 jobs at risk
Last March, Minister of Economic Inclusion, Small Business, Employment and Skills Younes Sekkouri stated in a written parliamentary response that the new French regulations could affect between 40,000 and 50,000 jobs across Morocco.
It is over the scale of this potential social impact that the sharpest disagreements have emerged between employee representatives and major industry operators.
The union representative acknowledges that obtaining reliable data on the call center industry is difficult. According to him, part of the sector operates informally, with some centers running discreetly from apartments or low-profile premises, often beyond the reach of labor inspections and official statistical agencies.
Despite operating outside established professional standards, many of these businesses, Ayoub Saoud argues, have played a significant social role over the past two decades. “Call centers have been an important gateway into the labor market for young people, as well as for many migrants from sub-Saharan African countries living in Morocco” he explains.
These populations will be among the first victims of the expected contraction in activity.
A limited Impact According to the FMES
Youssef Chraïbi, CEO of Outsourcia and president of la Fédération marocaine de l’externalisation des services (FMES), offers a far more measured assessment of the reform’s impact. “Telemarketing now accounts for less than 15% of contact center activity” he says. That figure stands in sharp contrast to the estimate provided by Minister Younes Sekkouri in a written response to PJD MP Fatima Zahra Batta. The minister noted that telemarketing can represent up to 80% of business activity for some companies in the sector. The two figures suggest vastly different levels of exposure to the new French regulations.
“The Moroccan companies that will be truly affected by the ban on telemarketing in France are small businesses heavily reliant on outbound B2C telemarketing to France”
Chraïbi also stresses that contact centers represent just one of the five major ecosystems within Morocco’s outsourcing industry. “The sector has diversified considerably in recent years into customer service, technical support, backoffice operations, debt collection, digital customer relations, BPO, data processing, and AI-related services” he says. In his view, the companies most exposed are small firms that remain heavily dependent on outbound B2C telemarketing targeting France. “Diversified, well-structured operators focused on long-term customer relationship contracts will be far less affected” he estimates.
According to Chraïbi, the sector’s largest players, which employ nearly 80% of its workforce, have already anticipated the shift and begun retraining employees for more sustainable roles.
Innovate to Survive
While France’s telemarketing reform has dominated headlines, several observers argue that the industry’s real disruption lies elsewhere. For Ayoub Saoud, Moroccan outsourcing firms face a double challenge. Beyond the new restrictions on telemarketing, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence is driving clients to demand lower prices while accelerating the automation of business processes.
The union leader also claims that certain large companies have already begun reducing headcounts without resorting to formal redundancy plans, instead encouraging negotiated departures or gradually phasing employees out.
“The real issue isn’t saving a declining profession (telemarketing, ed.), it’s transforming skills”
Chraïbi agrees that the sector is undergoing a profound transformation, but draws a very different conclusion. “The real challenge is not preserving a profession in decline; it is transforming skills” says the entrepreneur, who advocates for a Darwinian approach to adaptation. “We need to be realistic. The challenge is not to artificially sustain an activity that is destined to disappear. It is to help the sector move up the value chain through training, reskilling, and enabling SMEs to transition into more resilient and higher-value activities” he argues.
According to him, companies that have invested in training, omnichannel strategies, digital services, and higher value-added offerings are now better positioned to withstand the gradual decline of unsolicited telemarketing.
A Lack of Anticipation
The sector’s level of preparedness has emerged as another point of contention. For the FNCAMO, the warning signs had been clear for more than a year. Yet little was done, says Ayoub Saoud, to anticipate the impact of the reform or support the companies and workers most exposed to its consequences.
The union representative also criticizes the extension of the Maroc Offshoring program, arguing that it has failed to keep pace with the sector’s evolving realities, particularly the rapid rise of artificial intelligence and the gradual disappearance of certain professions. Above all, however, he points to what he sees as a lack of meaningful social dialogue, arguing that workers’ representatives have not been sufficiently involved in discussions about the industry’s future.
On the employers’ side, the tone is more pragmatic. Youssef Chraïbi notes in this regard that the FMES is naturally monitoring the situation alongside the relevant institutional stakeholders.
Still, there is broad agreement across the industry on one point: companies that remain heavily dependent on telemarketing will need to adapt quickly, and diversification alone may not be enough.
For Chraïbi, many SMEs should already have embarked on a deeper transformation. In his view, a business model built solely on cost-cutting, as has often been the case in recent years, is ultimately unsustainable. “We need to stop thinking that low prices are a strategy. It’s often just a sign of impending doom ” he says.
For its part, the FNCAMO is calling for the implementation of a national program to recognize prior learning and support the retraining of workers most vulnerable to the sector’s transformation. The union also urges caution when it comes to certain emerging activities often presented as future growth engines. Saoud points in particular to digital content moderation, a fast-growing segment in several countries. “This sector exposes employees to significant contractual insecurity as well as psychological risks linked to repeated exposure to violent or shocking content, ” he emphasizes.
One thing is clear: with the French ban on unsolicited telemarketing set to take effect on August 11, the clock is ticking. Industry leaders and public authorities will need to move quickly if they hope to prevent tens of thousands of workers from being pushed out of employment.
In any case, between now and August 11, industry leaders and public authorities will need to move quickly to find an immediate solution to prevent thousands of workers from being pushed out of employment.
Written in French by Amine Belghazi, edited in English by Amina Kadiri
