France's Narrow Gigabyte Tax Vote Targets Big Tech Data Flows, Sparks Regulatory Pushback

France's National Assembly narrowly approved an amendment on October 30, 2026, introducing a €0.055 per gigabyte tax on content providers sending data to French internet subscribers as part of the 2027 budget bill. Socialist deputy Laurent Lhardit and colleagues filed the measure (amendment I-1358), which would require ISPs to meter traffic volumes under Arcep and tax authority oversight, with liability capped at 15% of French revenue or 2% globally. Authors project €10 billion in annual revenue based on Arcep estimates of 200 billion gigabytes flowing to subscribers yearly, with Google, Meta, Amazon, Netflix, and Akamai accounting for roughly half. The vote passed 11-10 with 14 abstentions among just 35 deputies present, against government and finance committee opposition; National Rally abstained, and a full chamber could reverse it. The tax remains far from law, requiring Senate approval and further parliamentary steps amid concerns over cost pass-through to users or advertisers, impacts on nonprofits like VideoLAN (potentially over €1 million annually), and incentives for data compression. This reflects broader European efforts to tax digital giants beyond profit-shifting, echoing debates in Canada and South Korea, while highlighting political fragmentation and potential for unintended economic ripple effects on cloud providers, streaming, and smaller French entities.