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LIVING IN FRANCE

Reader question: Is the French government really forcing Amazon to raise its prices?

Did you receive a recent email from Amazon informing you book delivery prices are going up? Here's why.

Published: 4 October 2023 15:54 CEST
Reader question: Is the French government really forcing Amazon to raise its prices?
An employee prepares a package for shipment at an Amazon logistics centre (Photo by Ronny Hartmann / AFP)

Amazon customers in France may have received an email informing them that additional fees will be added to future orders.

The email states that starting October 7th, new rules for new book delivery pricing will go into effect.

A sample of the email sent out by Amazon.fr (Screenshot by Genevieve Mansfield)

This is not a scam. The change is thanks to a new French law – originally published in France’s Journal Officiel in April – which is now coming into effect.

The law requires online providers to charge a minimum of €3 in delivery costs for book purchases of less than €35 in order to maintain fair competition with small, independent bookshops.

Previously, online retailers were charging as low as €0.01 for book delivery fees, while independent booksellers were forced to charge at least €7 to €9, according to reporting by Le Monde. 

READ MORE: Why are there so many bookshops in France?

The law affects anyone selling books online – but is primarily targeted at the online giants like Amazon, who use low delivery fees to attract customers. 

Amazon France wrote in their email that any customer who purchased a new book before October 7th will not see the additional fee added, even if the delivery is meant to be after October 7th.

The change will affect all Amazon customers, including Prime subscribers.

For new book purchases above €35, Amazon will retain the right to charge just €0.01 in delivery fees.

France’s history with protecting booksellers

The French government first announced the intention to raise minimum prices for book deliveries in 2021, as part of the Darcos Act. In the years following, Amazon pushed back, eventually taking the matter to the Conseil d’État.

Frédéric Duval, the Managing Director of Amazon France, told French business journal Les Echos that the measure will “penalise readers, authors and reading in general”.

He argued that keeping fees low online allows for people in rural areas to get books: “almost half of the books sold by Amazon in France are sent to small towns where there are often no bookshops.”

Eventually, the French government was able to reach an agreement the the bookseller’s union (Syndicat de la librairie française, or SLF) and Amazon to set the additional fee for delivering new books to €3. This is lower than the €4.50 requested by the SLF and higher than Amazon’s suggestion of €1.49.

This is not the first time the French government has stepped in to regulate book prices and discounting. In 1981, the “Lang Law” first 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.

However, since the rise of internet giants, bookshops began to worry the law was being undermined. 

In response to these concerns, in 2014 French lawmakers voted to ban giants like Amazon from shipping books for free.

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TRAVEL NEWS

What’s the deal with passport stamping in France?

There are clear guidelines in place about who should have their passport stamped when they enter or leave France - but the letter of the law doesn't always seem to be applied on the ground. Here's what you need to know.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:24 CEST
What's the deal with passport stamping in France?

When you pass through a French border control post, officers will check your passport and – in some cases – stamp the date of your entry or exit of the country onto one of the blank pages in the booklet.

Although the system should be clear and simple, it becomes complicated when conflicting information is given on the ground.

Here’s what the rules say, and whether it’s really a problem if your passport is incorrectly stamped.

Who should be stamped?

The purpose of the date stamps for entry and exit is to calculate how long you have been in France, and therefore whether you have overstayed your allowed time – whether that is the time allowed by a short-stay Schengen visa or the visa-free 90-day allowance that certain non-EU nationals benefit from. 

Those people who are exempt from 90-day restrictions should therefore not have their passports stamped.

EU passport – people who have an EU passport should not have it stamped, because they have the right to unlimited stays due to EU freedom of movement.

Dual nationals – people who have passports of both EU and non-EU countries should not be stamped when they are travelling on their EU passport. However, because the passports of dual nationals are not ‘linked’, those travelling on their non-EU passports will be stamped, unless they have other proof of residency.

READ ALSO What are the rules for dual-nationals travelling in France?

French residents – the passports of non-EU citizens who have a residency permit in France (carte de séjour) should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their permit is valid.

Visa holders – people who have a long-stay visa or a short-stay visitor visa should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their visa is valid. 

Tourists/visitors – people making short visits to France who do not have a visa should be stamped, with the stamps keeping track of their 90-day allowance. Visitors from nationalities who do not benefit from the 90-day rule (eg Indians) are also stamped.

Travel practicalities

When crossing a French border, you should present your passport along with other documents – visa or carte de séjour – if relevant. Don’t wait for border guards to ask whether you are a resident.

It should be noted that the carte de séjour is not a travel document and cannot be used to cross borders, not even internal Schengen zone borders. The only valid travel documents for entering France are a passport or national ID card. Any other forms of ID – driving licence, residency card etc – cannot be used for travel purposes.

Border problems

While the rules on stamping are simple in theory, many readers of The Local have reported having their passports incorrectly stamped at the border, and this seems to be a particular problem for non-EU nationals who are resident in France.

Travellers are also often given incorrect information by border guards – for example being told that only holders of the post-Brexit Article 50 TUE carte de séjour are exempt from stamping, that all non-EU nationals must have their passports stamped or that only being married to a French national exempts you from stamping.

None of these are correct.

It’s also sometimes the case that people whose passports should be stamped – tourists, visitors and second-home owners who don’t have a visa – do not receive the stamp. For frequent visitors this can be a problem because it looks as though they have had a long stay in France, due to their exit not being recorded.

The system of stamping itself is also a bit haphazard with stamps scattered throughout the passport book in random order, so border guards sometimes make mistakes and miss an entry or exit stamp and therefore think that people have overstayed when they haven’t.

So how much of a problem actually is it if your passport is wrongly stamped?

It’s one thing to know the rules yourself, it’s quite another to have an argument with a border guard, in French, when a long queue is building behind you. Numerous Local readers have reported feeling that they had no choice but to accept a stamp when an implacable guard insisted upon it.

But is this really a problem?

One thing is clear – if you are a resident of France then you have the right to re-enter, and your proof of residency (visa or carte de séjour) takes precedence over any passport stamps. So it’s not a question of being barred from the country – it can, however, be inconvenient as it might lead to delays at the border while your passport record is queried.

Meanwhile people who did not receive correct exit stamps can be incorrectly told that they have over-stayed and even be liable for a fine. 

Will the new EES passport control system improve this?

Theoretically, the EU’s new Entry & Exit System – which does away with the manual stamping of passports – should get rid of these problems.

However, as we have seen, theory and what actually happens on the ground are two different things.

The EES system, due to come into effect later this year, brings in two main changes – it makes passport checks more secure by adding diometric data such as fingerprints and facial scans and it does away with manual stamping of passports and replaces it with scans which automatically calculate how long people have been in France.

You can read full details of how it works HERE. 

So that should eliminate the problems of unclear stamps, stamps being read wrongly or passports not getting the stamps they need.

Residents in France – carte de séjour and visa holders – are not required to complete EES checks and should have a separate system at ports, airports and railway terminals.

However, at present it’s pretty common for border guards to give incorrect information to non-EU residents who are resident in the EU – let’s hope that they are properly briefed before EES is deployed.

Have you had problems with passports being incorrectly stamped? Please share your experiences in the comments section below

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