French national assembly votes 0.055€/GB internet tax

France’s National Assembly narrowly approved a proposed tax on online content providers, with the vote passing 11-10 despite opposition from the government and the budget rapporteur. The amendment would charge €0.055 for each gigabyte of data delivered to users in France, with internet providers measuring traffic quarterly and reporting it under oversight from the telecom regulator and tax authorities. Content delivery networks are included in the measurement. The measure’s sponsors say it could raise as much as €10 billion and encourage companies to reduce data use; a cap would limit liability to 15% of French revenue or 2% of worldwide revenue.

The proposed levy covers far more than subscription video: affected services could include social media, livestreaming, cloud storage, videoconferencing, AI and code repositories, game stores, large downloads, operating-system updates, and infrastructure providers such as Cloudflare and Akamai. The tax would be paid by companies, not directly by consumers, but providers might respond by raising subscription prices, limiting downloads or bandwidth in France, or changing their services to manage the cost. Adoption by the Assembly is only one stage in the process: the proposal still faces Senate review and must overcome the executive’s objections before it can become part of the budget law.