The Lyon Administrative Court sets the framework for the city's digital advertising regulations. In a ruling handed down on June 3, 2025, the court annulled six articles of the city's Local Advertising Regulations (RLP), judged to be "unlawful" "totally unbalanced and illegal" by visual communications professionals and employers' associations, including Fespa France.
Among the measures censured were an outright ban on digital signs, a general ban on digital advertising, and a ban on the presence of digital advertising in shop windows.
The most restrictive regulation ever adopted
Since its introduction, this regulation has been considered by visual communication professionals to be the most restrictive ever adopted. It has been the subject of several appeals, notably from Fespa France, the trade organization for the visual communications industry.
According to Christophe Quatrini, member of the Fespa France Board of Directors and Chairman of the Digital Media Commission, the elected representatives of metropolitan France are "did not listen to the professionals at the working meetings or to the public investigators who had issued warnings in their report". He believes that "we've gone from regulating advertising and signs to banning them in 57 communes".
Two more articles challenged by Fespa France
The accumulation of prohibitions and restrictions in the 74 articles of the RLP had led Fespa France to denounce a text it deemed incompatible with economic issues, freedom of expression and the preservation of local employment.
But this decision is seen as a partial victory. Fespa France is also calling for the deletion of two other provisions still in force.
It contests the ban on advertising tarpaulins installed during construction sites, as well as the limit on the size of digital screens in shop windows, set at 2 m 2 in tourist areas and 1 m 2 in the others.
