The amendment draws on Arcep’s estimate that French internet providers deliver about 200 billion gigabytes a year to their customers. It attributes half of that traffic to those five companies.
The charge would be capped at 15% of the sender’s French revenue or 2% of global revenue. The amendment also specifies that measurement would cover data quantities alone, without accessing the content being delivered.
Supporters argue that taxing traffic would address profit shifting: companies can book profits abroad, but data delivered to French households remains tied to France. Revenue would enter the state budget rather than go to telecom operators, distinguishing the proposal from Europe’s “fair share” debate over payments for network infrastructure.
Telecom operators would count traffic, not inspect content
Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free would measure how much data reaches their customers and identify its sender. They would submit anonymized, aggregated figures quarterly to the tax authority, with Arcep supervising the process.
For traffic routed through a content delivery network, which stores content closer to users, the calculation would count the total data leaving that network. The amendment says the measurement technology already exists and that industry specialists helped develop the method.
VideoLAN’s estimate puts the cost beyond Big Tech
VideoLAN estimates that France’s gigabyte tax would cost the nonprofit more than €1 million a year. In a post on X, the organization criticized lawmakers for approving a tax it said they did not understand.
Gaming downloads illustrate the scale of the proposed charge. Steam’s download statistics showed 62.7 petabytes delivered to users in France over seven days. Applying the proposed rate produces an estimate of about €3.4 million for that week, or roughly €180 million annually, before accounting for the revenue caps.
At the same rate, a 200-gigabyte game download would generate €11 in tax. Arcep’s average fixed-line usage figure of about 267 gigabytes a month would translate theoretically into almost €15 monthly. These are calculations of the proposed levy, not charges imposed directly on subscribers.
Government opposition and the next legislative step
The government opposed the amendment, and the finance committee had rejected it earlier in October. Friday’s vote nevertheless put it into the budget text at first reading.
According to Budget minister David Amiel, smaller content providers, many of them French, would bear half of the tax burden. The amendment’s authors instead present traffic-based taxation as a way to make global technology companies contribute based on their activity serving French households rather than on where they declare profits.
The Senate is the next legislative stage, and the conservative Republicans hold a majority there. Separately, National Assembly president Yaël Braun-Pivet has urged Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to use Article 49.3 to push the budget through without a vote.
Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.
