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France to pass law on minimum delivery charge to protect independent bookstores

France's National Assembly passed a bill on Wednesday which will impose a minimum delivery fee for books, as a way of helping independent bookshops compete with online multinationals.

Published: 8 October 2021 15:48 CEST
An Amazon employee prepares an order in Augny, France. Amazon will no longer be able to charge one centime for delivering books.
Amazon will no longer be able to charge one centime for delivering books. Photo: SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP.

Lawmakers from France’s lower house approved the “Bill aiming to improve the book economy and strengthen equity between its actors”, to give it its full name, which was put forward by senator Laure Darcos of Les Républicains.

The Senate passed the bill in June, and it will now return to the upper house for a second reading.

Online giants have been able to get around a 2014 law banning the free delivery of books by offering shipping at €0.01. Meanwhile it costs regular bookstores €7 on average to fulfill an order, according to the Syndicat de la Librairie Française (SLF) federation of bookshop owners.

The bill “is fully in line with the wish to return to a fixed price for books by levelling out shipping prices,” Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot said, as reported by AFP.

The 1981 “Lang Law” introduced a fixed price for new books in France, meaning you will pay the same amount regardless of where you shop, with stores able to offer no more than a 5 percent discount. Bookshops believe the spirit of this law has been undermined by the rise of online shopping, since shipping costs can make prices vary dramatically.

That is why in 2014 lawmakers voted to ban giants like Amazon from shipping books for free, but independent bookshops have since complained that the American company is still able to gain an unfair advantage.

The SLF said it had “spent years denouncing this competitive imbalance which constitutes a way around the fixed price of books and an obstacle for the presence of bookshops online.”

READ ALSO EXPLAINED: Why you won’t find many discounts on books in France

While the Fnac chain has lent its support to the policy, Amazon is unsurprisingly less enthusiastic about the measure.

“At a time when inflation is making a marked return and when public authorities are calling for everything to be done to stop it, do we need a law which drives up the cost of books and penalises residents of small towns and rural areas?”, Frédéric Duval, Managing Director of Amazon France, said in a statement published earlier this week.

“More than half of the books bought on Amazon are from residents of towns of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, and more than a quarter are from residents of towns of fewer than 2,000 inhabitants. For them, buying online is often the only feasible solution,” Duval added.

Once the bill has passed into law, it will be up to the Culture and Economy ministries to set the minimum delivery price, along with the Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes regulator. The amount has not yet been decided, but the SLF has argued in favour of €3 to €5.

Stores will still be authorised to offer free “Click and collect” services, allowing customers to reserve books online and collect them in-store.

Member comments

  1. Welcome to France, a country that has no idea about the retail sector, no idea about modern sales practices and no idea how to treat the consumer, in fact do they know what a consumer is.

  2. All the more reason to prefer ebooks, which I switched to early in the first lockdown when online sellers of all sorts were struggling with the logistics of meeting the sudden surge in demand. Besides – instant gratification.

  3. 1. This is something that will hit immigrants the most.
    2. I wonder how this will affect things like Amazon Prime and their collection lockers.

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TAXES

Explained: France’s exit tax

Planning on leaving France? You may, depending on your circumstances, be charged the 'exit tax'.

Published: 11 April 2024 11:28 CEST
Explained: France's exit tax

Like some other European countries, France does have an exit tax for those (French or foreign) who are leaving the country. It’s known by the English name l’Exit tax.

However, it won’t affect most people.

Only those who have been tax resident for a minimum six years of the 10 years immediately before they permanently move out of the country are liable to pay an exit tax – if, that is, they own property, titles or rights worth a minimum of €800,000, or that represent 50 percent of a company’s social profits.

If that affects you, the best advice is to seek expert individual financial advice before moving out of France for good. The relevant page on the French government’s impot.gouv.fr website says it is possible to defer payments, and some relief is available.

Because of the relatively high figures involved, this tax is irrelevant for most people. That said, however, you will still have to inform tax authorities that you are moving out of the country because you may still have income, property and capital gains taxes to pay.

Income tax

You must inform the tax office that you are moving and give them your new address so that your tax declarations can be transferred to your new address.

You are liable for tax on everything you earned in France prior to your departure as well as on any French earnings that are taxable in France under international tax treaties that you earned after your departure.

The year of your departure, you declare your previous year’s earnings as normal – declarations in spring 2024 are for earnings in 2023.

A year later, you will have to declare any earnings taxable in France from January 1st up to the date of your departure, and any French-sourced income taxable source until December 31st of the year of your departure.

If you continue to have any French-sourced income – such as from renting out a French property – you will have to declare that income annually, using the non-residents declaration form.

Property taxes

You will have property taxes to pay if you own a French property on January 1st of any given year – whether it is occupied or not. 

Property tax bills come out in the autumn, but they refer to the situation on January 1st of that year, so even if you sell your property you will usually have the pay a final property tax bill the following year.

Moreover, if you receive income from property in France or have rights related to that property (such as shared ownership or stock in property companies), as well as any additional revenue connected to the property, during the year you leave France, you will be required to pay taxes on these earnings.

If any property assets in France exceed €1.3 million on January 1st of a given year, you may also have to pay the wealth tax (IFI).

READ ALSO What is France’s wealth tax and who pays it?

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Capital gains tax 

If you sell your French property or share of a French property, you may be liable for capital gains tax at a rate of 19 percent. It will also be subject to social security contributions at the overall rate of 17.2 percent.

Capital gains tax varies depending on how long you have owned the property and whether it was a second home or your main residence.

READ ALSO How much capital gains tax will I have to pay if I sell my French property?

The good news is, if you move to another EU country, or any country that has a specific tax agreement with France, you may be exempt from capital gains tax for non-resident sellers on the sale of a property that was your principal residence in France.

If you move elsewhere, you may be able to claim exemption on capital gains tax up to €150,000. As always, you should seek expert financial advice.

Tell Social Security

Inform social security that you are leaving France permanently – and return your carte vitale if you have one. If you do not, you may be liable for any benefits you receive to which you are no longer entitled.

More mundane tasks involve informing utility and water companies, your internet provider, if you have one, the phone company, your insurance companies, banks – and La Poste, who will be able to forward your mail for up to 12 months, for a fee…

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