France to Netflix: ’Fiche-nous la paix!’

Netflix has arrived in France . . . and France is not amused.

Worried that the American video-streaming giant will try to avoid paying French taxes, even as it launches a bloody frontal assault on the country’s Gaelic sensibilities and proud national culture, critics from Marseilles to Metz are apparently lashing out.

According to an item in The Telegraph, Netflix is getting a lukewarm welcome this week “amid hostility from state-subsidised local media and fears that it will erode the French ‘cultural exception.’

Whatever the heck THAT means.

For its part, Netflix is attempting to schmooze the French public “and soothe anxious film and TV producers, accustomed to being sheltered from international competition, by financing a locally-made drama called “Marseille.”

But French creative types are still upset, accusing Netflix of “fiscal dumping.”The French film producers association claims Netflix “is deliberately avoiding local taxes paid by national television channels and streaming services, which subsidise French films, by setting up its European headquarters in Amsterdam. That will also exempt it from a requirement that 40 per cent of content on TV and radio must be of French origin.”Credit: Edgadget.com