By Hamza Faisal
France's National Assembly has voted to charge the world's biggest tech companies for every gigabyte of data they send into French homes — a first-of-its-kind "gigabyte tax" that passed by a single vote and immediately set off a fight over who really pays for the internet.
On Friday, October 30, the Assembly adopted amendment I-1358 to the 2027 finance bill by 11 votes to 10, with 14 abstentions — only 35 deputies took part in the vote. The amendment, tabled by Socialist deputy Laurent Lhardit and dozens of co-signatories, passed against the advice of the government and the budget's general rapporteur.
How the 5.5-cent levy would work
Under the plan, internet providers — Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free — would measure how much data reaches each subscriber from each sender, and the tax authority would bill the sender €0.055 per gigabyte. Subscribers would not owe the tax, and the providers would not pay it either; they would only measure, under telecom regulator Arcep's oversight. The authors say the scheme is privacy-safe because nobody reads the content — only the quantity is counted.
The amendment's own justification names the five companies that account for about half of all traffic measured by Arcep: Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix and the content-delivery firm Akamai. Traffic delivered through content delivery networks counts toward the company using them.
To limit the hit, no company would pay more than 15 percent of its revenue in France or 2 percent of its global revenue. The Socialists expect the levy to raise up to €10 billion a year, based on Arcep figures showing roughly 200 billion gigabytes a year flowing to French subscribers; Budget Minister David Amiel puts the yield closer to €5 billion.
Gamers and streamers in the firing line
The arithmetic is simple — and, for data-heavy industries, stark. A 100-gigabyte game download would carry €5.50 of tax for the company distributing it; a 200-gigabyte title, the estimated size of GTA VI according to French tech site Clubic, would cost €11. The amendment explicitly mentions video games among the sectors delivering large volumes of data relative to their revenue.
OVHcloud chief executive Octave Klaba estimated his firm's exposure on October 31: at 324 gigabits per second of average traffic to French providers, the gross tax would be roughly €70 million a year.
Critics warn the bill will not stay with the giants. When France created its 3 percent "GAFA tax" in 2019, Amazon raised fees for sellers, Google for advertisers, Apple for developers, and Meta passed the charge into advertising budgets. The budget's rapporteur warned the biggest platforms could again pass the cost on — this time to advertisers and, indirectly, consumers.
A long way from law
Nothing changes yet: MPs must still vote on the whole first part of the bill, and the Senate can then delete or rewrite the tax. The government, which opposes it, could also force the budget through using Article 49.3 of the constitution, leaving the amendment out.
The idea has been through several versions: the Socialist programme proposed €0.10 per gigabyte to fund network infrastructure, and an earlier version was rejected by the Finance Committee on October 9. As adopted, the €0.055 version contains no earmarking for network operators.
For now, the vote is a signal as much as a tax: after years of debate over making big traffic generators contribute to network costs, France has put a price on a gigabyte — and the rest of Europe will be watching the Senate.
