Philippe2025.fr or Attal2026.fr… Who can preempt the website names of politicians?

The affair, revealed by Le Canard Enchaîné on October 21, is embarrassing: an individual reserved the addresses Philippe2025.fr, Philippe2026.fr, and Attal2026.fr before the teams of the two former prime ministers. These domain names now redirect to the Mediapart website. Faced with this maneuver, the communications department of the two politicians had to urgently fall back on the extensions ".net" and ".org."

In France, the French Association for Internet Naming Cooperation (Afnic), under government supervision, manages the allocation of ".fr" domain names. The rule is simple: any individual or company can reserve an available name, without having to prove a particular connection to it. All you need to do is reside in a country within the European Union.

Platforms like OVH, Gandi, or Google Domains allow you to complete this process in just a few minutes, for a modest cost, generally between €10 and €50 per year, depending on the extension. Anyone can therefore legally reserve Philippe2027.fr or Macron2030.fr as long as these addresses are available.

This apparent freedom, however, comes with significant safeguards. The principle remains "first come, first served," but it doesn't allow everything. Several situations are prohibited, such as cybersquatting or bad-faith registration. It's impossible to register nike.fr or la-croix-actu.fr without the authorization of the legitimate owners. Registered trademarks are protected, and their owners can demand the return of the domain.

Reserving a domain name for the sole purpose of reselling it at a high price is therefore prohibited. This speculative practice is considered abusive. If the author has acted "in bad faith" with the aim of causing harm, creating confusion, or taking undue advantage of another's reputation, they are liable to prosecution. Names linked to public institutions (mairie-paris.fr) or well-known figures (macron2027.fr) may be contested on this basis.

Beyond France, there is a procedure for resolving disputes between a domain name holder and a trademark holder. This is the responsibility of the Specialized Arbitration and Mediation Center of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which can order that the domain name be returned to a trademark.

The case can also be brought to court on the grounds of trademark infringement, parasitism, or unfair competition. But these actions take time—sometimes several months—and are much more expensive than preemptively reserving a few domain names.

Political communications teams have learned from these setbacks. The solution is to preemptively reserve several extensions (.fr, .com, .org, .net, or .eu) as soon as an electoral project takes shape. Some parties also monitor registrations of similar names to anticipate possible parody pages. But this doesn't offer a complete guarantee. In 2024, the domain name cacaboudin.fr was registered to point to the website of the… National Rally. A link that still works.

If you ever feel like campaigning, you can always check the availability of a domain name by going to inpi.fr for registered trademarks, to whois.afnic.fr for .fr domain names or directly to registration platforms such as OVH, Gandi and Google Domains.