French national assembly votes 0.055€/GB internet tax
France’s National Assembly has narrowly approved an amendment to tax internet traffic at €0.055 per GB, capped at 15% of a provider’s French revenue or 2% of global revenue, with streaming and gaming platforms explicitly in the crosshairs. Commenters argue the rate is wildly out of touch with actual bandwidth costs, would be passed on to consumers, harm non-profits and smaller services, and further damage France’s business climate, while noting it was passed in a near-empty chamber and is expected to be rejected by the Senate.
Scope and Mechanism of the Tax
- Proposed French tax of €0.055/GB on downstream data, nominally targeting content providers (streaming, gaming, cloud, CDNs, etc.).
- Liability capped at 15% of French revenue or 2% of global revenue, intended to protect data-heavy, low-margin sectors.
- ISPs would monitor and report traffic; providers are expected by many commenters to pass costs on to users.
Legislative Status and Process
- Passed in the National Assembly as a budget amendment by an 11–10 vote out of 577 members.
- Multiple commenters say this kind of “pet” amendment often gets stripped later and that the overall budget has low odds of final adoption.
- Several argue the media and online outrage overstate how likely it is to become law; others say the signal alone already damages France’s tech image.
Economic Impact and Distribution
- Many see the per-GB rate as extremely high, often exceeding current bandwidth costs by ~10x.
- Examples: large game downloads (e.g., 200+ GB titles) would add several euros of tax per download; consumer internet bills could effectively rise dramatically if fully passed through.
- Viewed as regressive and innovation-discouraging, especially for free/non-profit services (e.g., open-source software downloads).
Winners, Losers, and Workarounds
- Concerns it would harm legal services (Netflix, Steam, YouTube, cloud, open-source mirrors) and advantage piracy and P2P distribution.
- Suggestions: move hosting/CDNs outside France, block French IPs, increase compression, reduce resolutions, or push P2P delivery.
- Some note potential incentives for domestic-only services if global firms hit the 15% cap.
Motivations and Broader Context
- Interpreted variously as:
- A desperate revenue grab to sustain high public spending and pensions.
- A backdoor way to tax US tech “hyperscalers.”
- Part of net-zero / “degrowth” rhetoric targeting data centers and bandwidth.
- Thread broadens into debate over French debt, high tax burden, state size, EU/eurozone fragility, and comparisons with other European and OECD countries.