France's National Assembly has endorsed a proposal to impose charges on companies transmitting data to French internet users, with the levy set at €0.055 per gigabyte. Introduced as an amendment to the 2027 budget, the measure cleared a razor-thin vote on Friday: 11 in favour, 10 opposed, and 14 abstentions. According to its Socialist backers, the tax could generate approximately €10bn annually. However, both the government and the finance committee opposed the amendment, and its path to becoming law remains precarious.

How the gigabyte tax would work

Under the amendment's framework, internet service providers would track data volumes reaching their customers and identify the originating company. Quarterly reports would be submitted to tax authorities under oversight from Arcep, France's telecoms regulator. The amendment explicitly prevents recording details about data content or destination. For data routed through content delivery networks that cache copies near users, taxation would occur as the data exits the network. A safeguard limits the tax to either 15% of a company's French revenue or 2% of its worldwide revenue, whichever is lower.

The amendment's supporting documentation references an Arcep calculation showing 200bn gigabytes annually reaching French internet subscribers. According to the authors, five companies—Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and Akamai—collectively account for roughly half this traffic.

I fail to see how a tax can be passed on to users of Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, since these services are free.

Laurent Lhardit, the amendment's author

Who else would pay

Public accounts minister David Amiel cautioned lawmakers that implementing the scheme would require either network sensors or measurement on individual user devices. He argued that approximately half the tax burden would fall on smaller content providers, many based in France—translating to roughly €5bn on the authors' projections. Finance committee rapporteur Philippe Juvin raised concerns that major platforms might shift costs to advertisers rather than absorbing them.

VideoLAN, the French nonprofit organisation operating the VLC media player, estimated the tax would cost it over €1m annually. The organisation noted that VLC has achieved more than 6 billion downloads.

So, the French socialists, and Parliament members just voted a tax, that they don't understand, which would cost VideoLAN more than 1 million euro per year.

VideoLAN, on X

What happens next

The amendment must navigate additional stages of the budget process to become law. The Senate, where the conservative Les Républicains party commands a majority, is expected to reject it. The government retains the option to advance the budget without a final parliamentary vote, in which case it could exclude the amendment from the final text. Additionally, President Trump's June threat of 100% tariffs on digital services taxes adds international pressure. Minister Amiel told the Assembly that France already possesses mechanisms to tax technology companies, including its existing digital services tax, and pointed to EU competition fines as another avenue.

Source: The Next Web