The French government is to ban discounting book prices by more than 5% and also to ban free postage or delivery by people such as Amazon. Whilst possibly most people on this site buy their books in the UK and have them delivered (which usually costs less anyway than getting in the car, parking and getting into a bookshop to find they don't have what you want) what do people feel about this? I do buy books (new and second hand) here and in the UK (sometimes elsewhere)but I can't really understand that this policy is likely to much bolster the French book shop industry. Is the post going to be searched to see where we get our gear from? What next- computers, appliances etc. many books are already printed in China or Brazil, and it seems to be a Luddite rearguard action. Will they start taxing English language books, DVDs and downloads etc as they are attacking the survival of the French language? I think that Hollande's night time scootering has gone to his head!
It is sheer idiocy. Chapitre who went on the web when Amazon was still quite new have already been bit badly by competition and lost a large market share. A large part of Amazon France was already part of the Luxembourg operation so do they care really? Abe Books get French publications, used and collectors' items quickly and cheaply too. Other dealers can find French books fairly quickly. The likes of Chapitre may just simply go broke, which is a terrible pity. I have used them for years and would miss them.
If they then come up with the clever idea of taxing imports, not just English language either, then that would not go down well with the European Commission so they would have trouble galore. If they then did it anyway, then we could simply all (French friends too) send to proxies who would repack them and then send them as gifts. Banning free postage and delivery is a hiding to nothing, that is simply going to boomerang on them and hit them full in the teeth.
As for part of the plot to save the French language, well all the DVDs being copyright protected and being required to have original language as part of that would see France in court every five minutes, so not a good idea either.
C'est pas cool François! As they might say in England 'On your bike...' (OK, scooter, but who cares?)
Absolutely agree.
And it will just hit the middle income brigade such as ourselves. Our eldest is in prepa and the book buying is weekly. The Fnac currently offer free delivery so removing that will mean I either A) have to pay out even more or B) get in the car and drive to Bayonne - 50 minutes each way, using diesel, adding miles to my car etc. etc. etc.
Beyond stupid.