Ébauche d'un droit de la consommation : la protection du chaland sur les marchés toulousains, aux XVIIème et XVIIIème siècles
Institution:
Toulouse 1Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
In the 17th and 18th centuries, civil peace mostly depended on supplying the population with enough essential foodstuffs. Therefore and in order to guarantee it, the institutions of toulouse undertook the rational development of markets : local by-laws and parliamentary legislation now coercive now liberal regulated the sale and buying conditions of goods as well as their mode of exploitation. Then political economy on which public order was based gradually turned towards a form of economic policy. In fact, the new stakes added to the former concerns led industrial activities to a more intense output of wealth and were aimed at the consumer, an actor that the market hadn't yet taken into account, but that was considered to be capital for the success of transactions. From then on, contract rights were to his advantage. Not only was the price of a product defined but also the quality and quantity of its different constituents guaranteed by the brand. The consumer's protection, an entirely new notion, got that way by the local authorities already heralded, because of its modernity, the consumer society of the 20th century. The various arrangements that regulated the commercial relations of the markets in toulouse can indeed be regarded as the early stages of our own rights of consumption.
Abstract FR:
Aux xviieme et xviiieme siecles, la paix civile depend surtout de l'approvisionnement suffisant de la population en denrees de premiere necessite. Aussi, pour la garantir, les institutions toulousaines entreprennent-elles un amenagement rationnel des marches : les mesures municipales et parlementaires, tantot coercitives, tantot liberales, regissent les conditions de vente et d'achat des marchandises, tout comme leur mode d'exploitation. L'economie politique, sur quoi se fonde l'ordre public, s'oriente alors, peu a peu, vers une politique de l'economie. De fait, les enjeux nouveaux, s'alliant aux preoccupations anciennes, tournent les activites industrielles vers une production plus intensive des richesses, et visent un acteur jusqu'alors inconnu sur le marche mais juge capital dans le succes des transactions : le consommateur. Des lors, le droit des contrats intervient en sa faveur. On definit non seulement le prix du produit mais aussi la qualite et la quantite de ses divers constituants, et que certifie la marque. La protection du consommateur, notion toute nouvelle, a laquelle aboutissent ainsi les autorites locales, annonce deja dans sa modernite l'esprit consumeriste du xxeme siecle. L'ensemble des dispositions, qui regle les rapports commerciaux sur les marches toulousains, trace, en effet, une esquisse de notre propre droit de la consommation.