the Minister of Culture deplores “a circumvention” of the law

Rachida Dati said on Saturday that the services of her ministry were working on this subject.

She spoke from the Book and Youth Press Fair in Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis). The Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, deplored, Saturday November 30, “a circumvention of the legislation” by Amazon, which ships books for free when it should be prohibited from doing so.

The American group must normally charge, since October 2023, a minimum of 3 euros for any book order below 35 euros. But in early November, he implemented a solution that, he says, complies with the terms of the law. The law of December 30, 2021 on the book economy authorizes free delivery “if the book is collected from a book retail store”. Amazon thus places the books at collection points (at reception or in automated lockers), within supermarkets or hypermarkets which sell books.

“I tell you: it’s a circumvention of the legislation”observed to AFP Rachida Dati. “We will answer it. (…) I asked for a very clear answer on this”she added, to explain that the services of her ministry were working on this subject. In a column published in The World, on November 21, independent booksellers and large cultural stores united to denounce the “predation strategy” d’Amazon.