France

[FR] Related rights for newspaper publishers: Competition authority orders Meta to negotiate in good faith with publishers and news agencies

IRIS 2026-7:1/6

Amélie Blocman

Légipresse

The Act of 24 July 2019, transposing Directive (EU) 2019/790 of 17 April 2019, introduced a related right for publishers and news agencies. In this context, Meta had entered into agreements in 2021 and 2024 with a trade union representing the interests of the general news press (Alliance de la Presse d’Information Générale – APIG), and a collective management organisation dedicated to defending the related rights of publishers and press agencies (Société des Droits Voisins de la Presse – DVP), covering payment of related rights until the end of 2024 and the end of January 2025. Since new negotiations launched in 2024 had failed, no remuneration had been paid since the start of 2025.

Accusing Meta of seeking to impose its own method of calculating remuneration for the use of their content on its services while refusing to provide them with the information the needed to objectively assess its proposals, the DVP and APIG had referred the matter to the French competition authority.

At this stage of its investigation, the competition authority, in a decision dated 8 July 2026, considered that Meta was likely to hold a dominant position in the personal social networks marketplace, in particular due to the size of Facebook’s user base and the scope of the services offered.

It also considered that the practices in question were likely to constitute an abuse of a dominant position (Article L. 420-2 of the Commercial Code and Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - TFEU). On the one hand, Meta was alleged to have imposed unfair trading conditions by refusing to discuss alternative methods of valuing related rights and limiting the scope of the negotiations to certain uses of press content. Furthermore, Meta was accused of circumventing the purpose of the law by failing to provide, or providing only belatedly and incompletely, the information necessary for balanced negotiations, thereby exacerbating the information imbalance between the parties.

The competition authority noted that the absence of remuneration since 2025, while press content had continued to be distributed on Meta’s services, was likely to cause serious and immediate harm to the press sector by depriving publishers and agencies of resources essential to their business.

As a precautionary measure, it ordered Meta to negotiate in good faith in accordance with transparent, objective and non-discriminatory criteria, to provide the information necessary for the negotiations within 15 days, not to worsen the conditions under which press content was distributed during the negotiations, and to report regularly on compliance with these orders. These measures will remain in force until a decision on the merits of the case is made, subject to any changes in the legislative framework.

With regard to the legislative framework, on 16 June, the Senate passed the bill tabled by MP Erwan Balanant and adopted by the National Assembly last March, which aims to strengthen the effectiveness of related rights for publishers and press agencies.

Noting that press organisations were struggling to obtain remuneration from digital platforms for the reproduction of their content, this bill aims to strengthen the procedure for negotiating related rights between press agencies and publishers on the one hand and online communication services on the other. It replaces a system based primarily on self-declaration with a binding mechanism, obliging platforms to provide publishers and press agencies with "information relating to the use of press publications by their users, as well as all information necessary for assessing remuneration" as provided for in Article L. 218-4 of the Intellectual Property Code. Platforms will have 30 days to provide the information requested by publishers and press agencies. In the event of a breach of this obligation, the French audiovisual regulator (Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique – Arcom) would be granted supervisory powers and the authority to impose penalties of up to 1% of the platforms’ turnover. In the absence of an agreement on the amount of remuneration, the matter may be referred to Arcom, which may then set the remuneration itself, either by accepting one of the parties’ proposals or by determining it independently.

The text has been notified to the European Commission ahead of a joint committee meeting to be held next autumn.