France has fixed price for books, with at most a 5% discount from the price fixed by the editor. For online merchant, the law allowed the 5% discount to apply

France has fixed price for books, with at most a 5% discount from the price fixed by the editor. For online merchant, the law allowed the 5% discount to apply only on shipping and shipping can't be free. So it doesn't matter if amazon shipping is 1cts or 1 eur, as long as it costs less than 5% it is free for the customer. But while shipping is still free, they now have to sell more expensive books. From the point of view of the government the law worked as intended and there is no loophole, amazon and online booksellers just became more expensive than offline shops (since they can have both free shipping and 5% discount). Personally if find that amazon played very well there, they managed to have the public perceive as a win what was a total loss.