to compensate for it, the deputy LR Olivier Marleix pleads for “a taxation of advertising on the Internet”

After the vote by the Assembly to abolish the audiovisual license fee, the president of the Les Républicains (LR) group outlined a solution to ensure “a sustainable resource” to public broadcasting. “I would see with a very good eye that we are working on a specific taxation of advertising on the Internet“, assured Olivier Marleix, Monday, July 25 on France Inter.

.@oliviermarleix on the financing of public broadcasting: “Today, what the government is proposing with a fraction of VAT, we know how it risks ending: budgetary regulation, therefore a reduction in the contribution over time” #le69inter pic.twitter.com/ajAaPOrgND

– France Inter (@franceinter) July 25, 2022

According to him, the “receipts” of this advertising now amount to “eight or nine billion” euros. “We can’t take everything, but these are extremely dynamic recipes that only benefit Gafam [Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon et Microsoft]today”he argued.

This would replace the solution voted by MEPs to replace the fee. On Saturday, amendments – some of which come from the LR group – were adopted to affect public broadcasting “a fraction” VAT, for an amount of approximately 3.7 billion euros, in order to respond to concerns about its financing. But Olivier Marleix criticizes this measure: “We delete a recipe and we compensate with an additional expense.”

Nevertheless, the nine LR deputies present in the hemicycle on Saturday voted for the measure. “Today, it’s people who have TVs” who pay it, “we do not necessarily watch TV only on a TV screen, but we can watch it on a computer”he pointed out.