France announces minimum €3 book delivery fee to help booksellers compete with Amazon

Published Books In Bookshop — Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images

The French government has announced it will introduce a minimum charge for book deliveries of €3 (about $2.92) in order to help small booksellers compete with retailing giant Amazon, reports Reuters. The minimum fee will only apply to orders under €35 (about $34.12).

It’s the latest measure by the French government to balance competition in the book sector and follows a decades-long tradition of protectionist laws. Since 1981, France has mandated fixed prices for books, with a maximum discount of 5 percent, and in 2010 expanded this law to cover ebooks. In 2014, the French government banned the free deliveries of books, to which Amazon responded by charging customers a single cent (€0.01) for delivery.

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