France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

PARIS, Oct 25 - Sophie Fornairon's independent bookshop has survived the rise of Amazon thanks to a French law that prohibits price discounting on new books, but she says the e-commerce giant's ability to undercut on shipping still skews the market against stores like hers. Fornairon, who owns the Canal Bookstore in central Paris, now hopes that new legislation that would set a minimum price for book deliveries will even the contest further in the battle of neighbourhood stores against Amazon. "Imposing a minimum shipping cost for books would weigh on the purchasing power of consumers," Amazon told Reuters in a statement. More than 20% of the 435 million books sold in France in 2019 were bought online and the market share of France's 3,300 independent bookstores has been slowly declining because of competition from online retailers like Amazon, Fnac and Leclerc. French law prohibits free book deliveries but Amazon has circumvented this by charging a single centime. Local book stores typically charge about 5-7 euros for shipping a book. Virtually-free delivery allowed book lovers in rural areas to buy books at the same price as someone who could walk into a bookstore - precisely the spirit of the 1981 law, it said.