I found a German website I wanted to order from. As I read they deliver to Belgium and even Lithuania I thought France would be no problem. I mailed them asking how about it and got this reply:
“Unfortunately, the bureaucratic effort involved in EU packaging licences, for example, has become so great that we have stopped shipping to end customers in France.”
I found this explanation elsewhere:
"Many retailers who already have a packaging licence in Germany wonder why they also have to licence their packaging in France. The reason is actually very obvious. The licence fee that manufacturers and retailers pay for placing their packaging on the market finances packaging recycling. And because the recycling systems are fundamentally different at national level, the licence must be paid where the packaging is generated as waste. So if you ship to France, you also have to pay a recycling fee there.
Unfortunately, politicians failed to create a standardised system for licensing throughout Europe when implementing the EU Packaging Directive. As a result, the packaging licence must be purchased separately in France and in other member states. Understandably, this causes a lot of frustration for online retailers in particular. After all, if you deliver across the EU, you have to take care of the local packaging law in each country separately."
Oh dear!