The 1981 Loi Lang (Lang Law) fixed this with the objective of protecting local independent book stores from competition. The law enshrines the French idea that local, independent book stores are an important part of French cultural life and therefore should be protected. A secondary reason was the protection of small publishing houses (of which France has _a lot_).
I hope that Amazon wins this because they provide a much wider range of books than any local book store, and they don't have surly service (and that's not a stereotype... I live in France :-). Also Amazon should be able to support the small book publisher through the classic 'long tail' of books.
Perhaps the idea is that in some cases, with too much undercutting, a single monopolistic vendor might be able to emerge, having killed off the competition. Which to me seems like a terrible reason to keep laws like this around - worry about the monopoly when it actually happens, and otherwise let the market get on with things.
French people just don't get economics. It's not taught at school except as an option in high school programs, where you're only taught keynesian, if not marxist, economics (french universities are less biased). They're not really good at rational thinking or logic, either. That's why most people actually support taxes and protectionist laws.
Sometimes it gets really funny. Amazon.fr has setup a forum to let people discuss about this issue (the legality of free shipping). Nearly all people there praise Amazon for the quality of its service, for how it helps disabled people and country-living people to read books, etc. Yet, for some reason they feel like they have to save the inefficient bookshops just because they're small. They'll say that Amazon is the greatest thing and frown upon capitalism in the same sentence.
"The law they put in place may seem like protectionism (it probably is), but if you go to any French town you don't see their supermarkets or major chains taking over, there are always independently run shops. It's not like over here in the UK where you are pushed to work out which town you are actually in because all high streets look the same these days.
You have to ask yourself what you want, nice looking towns with interesting shops run by locals (as well as a few larger chains) that aren't being driven out of business by aggressive supermarkets and their internet equivalent; or, as in most UK towns: mobile shop, bank, mobile shop, discount shop, Next, shoe shop (schuh, natch), dixons, another bank, tesco metro, boots, Greggs, Pret a Manger, sainsbury's local, etc. etc. And a couple of massive out of town supermarkets.
The French made their decision, we made ours, or at least the supermarkets et al made it for us, I know which I'd rather have."
Oh, by the way, why are books cheaper in France than in the land of the free (and of cutthroat competition) ?
I buy quite a lot of books, both in France and from other countries through amazon.{com,co.uk,ca} and I see no indication that books are any cheaper in France. The problem is that I don't buy the same kinds of books, so I don't have a good comparison point.
I've searched for book price statistics in different countries but I wasn't able to find them.
But, since powerful distributors such as Amazon.fr negotiate big discounts with publishers anyway, I'd rather have a piece of the cake than letting Amazon take all the profit for itself. What's interesting is that the main competitor to Amazon.fr, the french company FNAC, offers free shipping as well but, for some reason, wasn't attacked :)
Even if you favor that sort of outcome, there are different ways of accomplishing it. The best ways would be the most direct and the most transparent, or else you end up with things like the farm subsidies, where, in the popular image, it's the small farmers producing local products that everyone wants to help, but the big agribusinesses that reap the benefits.
Off the top of my head, an alternate method of promoting small local shops would be tax discounts for family owned stores with only one location. This would help them compete without absurd, ham-handed intervention like the government dictating prices and opening hours.
Yes, his comment about French people being bad at rational thinking was low quality. But why respond with an insult? That is also a type of low quality comment.
One thing I notice living here in France is that many business people seem to not actually want to do business. Opening hours (with random closing) are just the start.
There are many businesses for whom the customer appears to be a nuisance. In fact, businesses that work stand out like a sore thumb (for example, I've had nothing but great experiences with Darty and their after sales service).
My guess is that there are not more such businesses because French people (in general) don't actually expect good service, and hence they don't get it. The one thing that makes US businesses actually work IMHO is that Americans are willing to complain about bad service. In France, people will grumble, or they'll complain and the businessperson will insult them back.
I even remember having been taught, in biology classes in middle-school (something like 10 years ago), that AIDS was designed by the Pentagon or some other US agency to kill people in the third world (supposedly, for some imperialist or racist purpose). In history classes, I've been taught that the US basically went to WWII just to "steal" the world's gold reserves. It were exceptions, though; most teachers are decent. Still, I expect today's teachers to tell kids that GMOs are a very bad and dangerous thing and that organic food is the way of the future.
It's very sad because, despite this lack of rational thinking, we still have some very good scientists in France. But they're completely ignored by the population. When Claude Allegre, an eminent geologist and political figure, started to say controversial stuff about global warming, instead of thinking "maybe we should listen to one of our best scientists" the reaction was more like "oh, buzz of you and your science!"
>I even remember having been taught, in biology classes in middle-school (something like 10 years ago), that AIDS was designed by the Pentagon or some other US agency to kill people in the third world (supposedly, for some imperialist or racist purpose). In history classes, I've been taught that the US basically went to WWII just to "steal" the world's gold reserves.
Oh please, get a grip on yourself. Can you half seriously suggest this was official curriculum? I can see some abysmal maverick teacher speaking about this, but he wouldn't last long.
I agree that understanding why is important, but I don't think having some silly comments prevents that.
Though in this case, what interests me more than why France is primitive, is why we are better. Which part of our traditions prevents us from having this law?
While I have general answers to that question, I don't have any answers specific to this particular law.
Edit: BTW my comment did allude to a serious answer. They have a different meaning of freedom in France, and are somewhat hostile to our meaning of it.
I think the political forces that led European countries to democracy are much more tied up in class struggle than those that led to the American revolution. As a result, Europeans tend to make laws that keep large businesses from pressing their advantages as much as they can in the US.
No, not in general. For example consider those pesky subsidies in agriculture. Huge farms are far better at collecting them than small, family run farms. That's because big business can afford to a law department to hack the laws.
