> Until 1 January, when the legislation took effect, unless the person who had died had previously expressed a clear wish for or against donation, doctors were required to consult relatives who, in almost a third of cases, refused.
There were posters in most hospital waiting rooms telling people to do this (which I found creepy as I found myself there a few months ago, waiting for news on whether a relative would live or die, by the way). See [2] for an example.
Now the only way to opt out is to send snail mail (!) to be added to a nationwide file. It should become possible to do it over the Internet someday.
Fun fact - we have a pin card that has been designed to store that information since 2006, but the feature has never been made accessible to the public. [3]
[1] (fr) http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2016/12/22/don-d...
[2] (fr) http://fr.slideshare.net/amfe/guide-du-don-dorganes-2015-de-...
[3] (fr) https://www.agence-biomedecine.fr/Carte-Vitale-2-et-don-d-or...