Tax of €0.055 per GB of data: here is what could still block this controversial amendment from the socialist group

The amendment which provides for a tax of €0.055 per GB of data sent to the French was adopted in the National Assembly. But it still has to go through the Senate.

To make tech giants pay more taxes, an amendment from the socialist and related group proposes a tax on “producers of digital data”. Very concretely, this provides for a tax of €0.055 per gigabyte of data sent to French Internet users, which should bring in around 10 billion dollars, and which would mainly be paid by major players like Google, Meta, Amazon or Netflix.

As reported by Le Figaro, the amendment was adopted by the National Assembly, with 11 votes for and 10 votes against. But although it has been adopted, this very controversial amendment is not yet certain to be definitively included in the finance law for 2027.

Indeed, the text will also have to go through the Senate, which is dominated by the right. And, as Le Figaro explains, the text could also be re-examined at the request of the government, at a time when there will be more deputies. And, finally, the government could still resort to 49.3 so that the measure proposed by the socialists does not pass.

The aim of this amendment, as explained in the summary statement, is to “restore fairness between the taxation applied to players in the established economy and that applied to globalized players in the digital economy who largely escape historical mechanisms.” In other words, the idea is to make digital giants pay more tax.

And VideoLAN, the French association which offers the famous VLC video player, also fears that it will be impacted by this measure. “The French socialists and deputies have just voted for a tax, which they do not understand, and which would cost VideoLAN more than a million euros per year,” he wrote. In response, PS MP Laurent Lhardit, who authored the amendment, wrote: “This tax is capped, and, in your case, it would not apply at all.”

You're talking nonsense; the tax is capped, and in your case, it wouldn’t apply at all. Read the text of the amendment instead of just jumping into the spawn along with the rest of the pack.

Machine-translated from French