France keeps its traditional bookstores and sharpens its weapons against the giants of online sales, especially Amazon. In the country with one of the largest bookshop networks in the world (3.500 outlets against a thousand in England, for example) and where culture invoices 3,2% of GDP (seven times more than the car market), when it comes to defending one's trade and countering a US giant (see Google tax) all political forces unite.
But absolutely all of them: in fact, the bill advanced by the UMP (centre-right party of former the denunciation of the Minister of Culture Aurélie Filippetti, which he accused several times Amazon, which is also under investigation in France for tax evasion (The taxman claims 250 million dollars for the years 2006-2010), to practice dumping, i.e. an aggressive policy aimed at combine the 5% discount on the cover prices and the free transport costs.
In fact with free delivery and 5% discounts on cover prices, and thanks to the registered office in Luxembourg which allows it to pay taxes to a minimum as well as having a VAT on books of 3% against 5,5% of France, Amazon enjoys a competitive advantage that many consider unfair competition. But this practice will soon no longer be allowed, to the delight of French publishers and booksellers, brought to their knees by a market, that of online book sales, which grew exponentially from 2003 to 2012 3,2% to 17%.
A figure closely linked to the advent of Amazon, which has an archive of over 400 titles in French, offers discounts of up to 5% and ensures free delivery quickly without a minimum purchase. A policy that costs the American company 5,1 billion dollars (3,7 billion euros) worldwide and against which small bookstores can do little or nothing to compete. Especially if, as the transalpine judiciary suspects, Amazon also evades taxes. According to Euromonitor, the real turnover that Amazon achieves in France is around 1,63 billion euros but it declares only 110 million. In 2011, the group only paid 3,3 million in taxes in France.
