France’s culture minister has branded Amazon a “destroyer of bookshops”, accusing the online retailer of undercutting traditional sellers to create a “quasi-monopoly.”
“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.
Montebourg said Yahoo’s attempts to “devour” Dailymotion were not in French interests.
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.
—telegraph.com