The chamber of France’s National Assembly at the Palais Bourbon in Paris, September 2024.
France’s National Assembly has voted to tax companies for every gigabyte of data they send to French internet users. The measure, an amendment to the 2027 budget, would charge content providers €0.055 per gigabyte. Its Socialist authors estimate it would raise €10bn a year. It passed by 11 votes to 10 on Friday, with 14 abstentions, according to the official record of the session.
The government and the finance committee both opposed it. The vote is only a first step. The tax must survive the rest of the budget process to become law.
Internet providers would measure the data flowing to their customers and note which company sent it, under the text of the amendment . They would report the totals to the tax authorities every quarter, under the supervision of telecoms regulator Arcep. The text bars any record of what the data contains or where it goes.
Some data travels through content delivery networks, which store copies close to users. That data would count as it leaves the network. The text caps the tax at 15% of a company’s French revenue or 2% of its global revenue.
The amendment’s explanatory note cites an Arcep estimate that 200bn gigabytes reach French internet subscribers each year. It says Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and Akamai account for about half of that traffic.
“I fail to see how a tax can be passed on to users of Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, since these services are free.” Laurent Lhardit, the amendment’s author, in the Assembly (TNW translation)
Public accounts minister David Amiel told MPs the scheme would need sensors on the networks, or measurement on users’ own devices. Half of the tax would fall on smaller content providers, many of them French, he said. On the authors’ own estimate, that is about €5bn. Philippe Juvin, the finance committee’s general rapporteur, warned that the big platforms could pass the cost on to advertisers.
VideoLAN, the French nonprofit behind the VLC media player, said the tax would cost it more than €1m a year. VLC has passed 6 billion downloads .
“So, the French socialists, and Parliament members just voted a tax, that they don’t understand, which would cost VideoLAN more than 1 million euro per year.” VideoLAN, on X
The Senate, where the conservative Les Républicains hold a majority, is unlikely to back it, Martin Clavey reported for Next . The government could also force the budget through without a final vote. In that case, it can leave the amendment out of the text, Next noted.
In June, President Trump threatened 100% tariffs over digital services taxes. Amiel told MPs France already has tools to tax big tech, such as its digital services tax. He also pointed to EU competition fines, which France says should cut EU contributions .
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
