Amazon is 'destroyer of bookshops', says French culture minister

By Henry Samuel, in Paris

“Today, everyone has had enough of Amazon which, through dumping practices, smashes prices to penetrate markets only to then raise prices again once they are in a situation of quasi-monopoly,” said Aurélie Filippetti, the culture minister.

In the latest Socialist government broadside against foreign internet firms, she said that she was mulling a ban on free postage offers and a current system allowing 5pc discounts on books.

“The book and reading sector is facing competition from certain sites using every possible means to enter the French and European book market…it is destroying bookshops,” she said.

Her outburst came just weeks after Arnaud Montebourg, President François Hollande’s outspoken industry minister, blocked Yahoo, the web portal, from buying a 75pc stake in DailyMotion, the successful French video sharing site owned by France Telecom.

Mr Montebourg said Yahoo’s attempts to “devour” Dailymotion were not in French interests.

Miss Filippetti’s attack in Bordeaux on Monday coincided with her announcement of a €9m joint plan with French publishers to support independent booksellers.

“This is an unprecedented effort in favour of the book and reading because without independent bookshops there will be fewer publishers and authors, less choice for the reader and fewer social networks in towns,” she said.

Some of the money would go towards “modernising” traditional bookshops and to fostering “online sales” of independent stores.

The government had already pledged a separate €9 million to the book industry in March.

Miss Filippetti made no mention of Amazon’s recent decision to open several major distribution centres, one of whose launches last year, creating 500 jobs, was attended by Mr Montebourg in person.

The independent book sector employs 13,000 people in France, according to union figures. Between 2003 and 2012, its revenues fell by 8pc.

Successive French governments have adopted fiercely protectionist stances against internet companies seen as a threat to French cultural and economic interests.

Former conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy introduced among the world’s strictest anti-piracy regimes to try to stem illegal downloads.

Under the current Socialist government, the telecoms regulator strong-armed Google into funneling €60m into France’s loss-wracked newspaper industry by threatening to to oblige the US internet giant to redistribute its revenues from links to French media articles.

The telecoms regulator has also asked the Paris public prosecutor to probe Skype, the Microsoft-owned internet telephone service, over whether it broke the law by not registering as a telecoms operator.

Last month, a government-commissioned report proposed slapping a tax on smartphones, tablets and other devices with an IP address in a move seen as a way of hitting the wallets of internet giants like Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook and preserving France’s "cultural exception". Miss Filippetti backs the idea.

French authorities are already embroiled in a dispute with Amazon over a £159m tax bill related to the company's sales in France between 2006 and 2010.

The figure includes fines and interest in relation to 'the allocation of income between foreign jurisdictions'.

The row arose because of Amazon's practice of reporting European sales through a holding company based in Luxembourg, which has relatively low corporation tax rates for earnings outside its borders.

Amazon insists the arrangement, which has been criticised by politicians across Europe, including Britain, is legal under the European Union's single market rules. /Telegraph