Digitised version produced by the EUI Library and made available online in 2020.Consumer protection appeared as a nell'area of policy in France and Germany in the 1970s. The regulatory approaches adopted by France and by Germany did not. however. emerge from deep national traditions of consumer protection. Indeed in many areas of consumer regulation such national traditions simply did not exist. Instead. the policy models that came to dominate in each country emerged from a heated political struggle that took place between producers and consumers in the 1970s and early 1980s over the identity of the consumer. At stake in this conflict was the degree of responsibility that consumers and producers faced for product-related risk
