French MPs vote 5.5-cent-per-gigabyte tax on Netflix, Google and Meta traffic in near-empty chamber

31/10/2026
24
Abstract illustration of data streams in blue, white and red passing through a metering gate that turns them into coins

An amendment to France's 2027 budget would charge content providers €0.055 for every gigabyte delivered to French internet users, with telecoms operators measuring the traffic. Its authors expect €10bn a year. It passed by 11 votes to 10 against the government's advice, and its chances of becoming law look slim.

France's National Assembly has voted for a tax on internet traffic itself, a first in Europe if it survives. On Friday 30 October, deputies adopted amendment I-1358 to the 2027 finance bill. It creates a "tax on producers of digital data" (translated) of €0.055 for each gigabyte that a company sends to subscribers of French internet providers.

The vote was tight and thinly attended. According to the official tally reproduced by Les Actes Parlent, 11 deputies voted for, 10 against and 14 abstained, with only 35 of 574 sitting members taking part. Socialist, ecologist, communist and some La France insoumise members backed the measure. Deputies from the government camp and Les Républicains voted against, and Rassemblement National members abstained. The amendment, tabled on 9 October by Socialist deputy Laurent Lhardit, had already been rejected in the finance committee, Numerama reported.

How the tax would work

Under the text of the amendment, internet providers would measure the volume of data flowing to their customers and identify who sent it, under the supervision of telecoms regulator Arcep and the tax authority DGFiP. They would report the totals every quarter. No record of content or destination could be required. Traffic served from content delivery networks would count as sent by the original provider. The bill would be capped at 15% of the provider's French revenue or 2% of its total revenue.

The authors cite Arcep figures of about 200 billion gigabytes delivered to French subscribers each year and say half comes from five companies: Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and Akamai. They expect the tax to raise €10bn a year. They also argue it would push platforms to compress their data. In the chamber, Lhardit said it would restore "fiscal equity between the established economy of our shops, which are suffering so much today, and the online commerce giants, American and Asian, which largely escape tax" (translated), Next reported.

Government says the bill would hit French firms

Public accounts minister David Amiel opposed the measure. He said it would require flow sensors or measurement at the level of individual devices, and that "half of the tax, still €5 billion according to your proposal, would not fall on the large digital companies but on smaller content providers, notably French providers" (translated), according to Next. Budget rapporteur Philippe Juvin warned that the tech giants would pass the cost on to advertisers.

Numerama pointed out that moving a gigabyte on the wholesale market costs a fraction of a cent, so the tax would cost several times more than delivering the data. One hour of 4K Netflix (up to 7GB) would carry close to 40 cents of tax, and a 200GB video game download about €11. That puts streaming services and game stores such as Steam in the firing line. The publication noted that France's 3% digital services tax of 2019 ended up being passed on to sellers, advertisers and app developers.

A long road ahead

The tax is far from law. It must survive the rest of the budget process and the Senate, where Les Républicains hold the majority and Next considers approval unlikely. Assembly speaker Yaël Braun-Pivet has urged prime minister Sébastien Lecornu to push the budget through with Article 49.3. In that case the government could leave the amendment out of the final text, Next noted. Europe 1 also stressed that this was only a first step.

The idea still matters beyond France. Large content platforms already pay digital services taxes in several European countries, and telecoms operators have long argued that the biggest traffic generators should contribute to network costs. Lhardit's version is different: operators would only do the counting, and the money would go to the state. Even a symbolic vote shows that taxing data volumes, not profits, has entered Europe's budget debates.

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French MPs vote 5.5-cent-per-gigabyte tax on Netflix, Google and Meta traffic in near-empty chamber

31/10/2026
24
Abstract illustration of data streams in blue, white and red passing through a metering gate that turns them into coins

An amendment to France's 2027 budget would charge content providers €0.055 for every gigabyte delivered to French internet users, with telecoms operators measuring the traffic. Its authors expect €10bn a year. It passed by 11 votes to 10 against the government's advice, and its chances of becoming law look slim.

France's National Assembly has voted for a tax on internet traffic itself, a first in Europe if it survives. On Friday 30 October, deputies adopted amendment I-1358 to the 2027 finance bill. It creates a "tax on producers of digital data" (translated) of €0.055 for each gigabyte that a company sends to subscribers of French internet providers.

The vote was tight and thinly attended. According to the official tally reproduced by Les Actes Parlent, 11 deputies voted for, 10 against and 14 abstained, with only 35 of 574 sitting members taking part. Socialist, ecologist, communist and some La France insoumise members backed the measure. Deputies from the government camp and Les Républicains voted against, and Rassemblement National members abstained. The amendment, tabled on 9 October by Socialist deputy Laurent Lhardit, had already been rejected in the finance committee, Numerama reported.

How the tax would work

Under the text of the amendment, internet providers would measure the volume of data flowing to their customers and identify who sent it, under the supervision of telecoms regulator Arcep and the tax authority DGFiP. They would report the totals every quarter. No record of content or destination could be required. Traffic served from content delivery networks would count as sent by the original provider. The bill would be capped at 15% of the provider's French revenue or 2% of its total revenue.

The authors cite Arcep figures of about 200 billion gigabytes delivered to French subscribers each year and say half comes from five companies: Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and Akamai. They expect the tax to raise €10bn a year. They also argue it would push platforms to compress their data. In the chamber, Lhardit said it would restore "fiscal equity between the established economy of our shops, which are suffering so much today, and the online commerce giants, American and Asian, which largely escape tax" (translated), Next reported.

Government says the bill would hit French firms

Public accounts minister David Amiel opposed the measure. He said it would require flow sensors or measurement at the level of individual devices, and that "half of the tax, still €5 billion according to your proposal, would not fall on the large digital companies but on smaller content providers, notably French providers" (translated), according to Next. Budget rapporteur Philippe Juvin warned that the tech giants would pass the cost on to advertisers.

Numerama pointed out that moving a gigabyte on the wholesale market costs a fraction of a cent, so the tax would cost several times more than delivering the data. One hour of 4K Netflix (up to 7GB) would carry close to 40 cents of tax, and a 200GB video game download about €11. That puts streaming services and game stores such as Steam in the firing line. The publication noted that France's 3% digital services tax of 2019 ended up being passed on to sellers, advertisers and app developers.

A long road ahead

The tax is far from law. It must survive the rest of the budget process and the Senate, where Les Républicains hold the majority and Next considers approval unlikely. Assembly speaker Yaël Braun-Pivet has urged prime minister Sébastien Lecornu to push the budget through with Article 49.3. In that case the government could leave the amendment out of the final text, Next noted. Europe 1 also stressed that this was only a first step.

The idea still matters beyond France. Large content platforms already pay digital services taxes in several European countries, and telecoms operators have long argued that the biggest traffic generators should contribute to network costs. Lhardit's version is different: operators would only do the counting, and the money would go to the state. Even a symbolic vote shows that taxing data volumes, not profits, has entered Europe's budget debates.

Sources

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