France wins a millionaire triumph in its war against Google: it will pay 965 million euros

"It's a historic agreement for our public finances and because it marks the end of an era", The French Minister of Public Accounts, Gérald Darmanin, reacted.

Google, which has been in the sights of the French treasure for several years, has already concluded agreements of this type in other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Italy.

The fine of 500 million euros, to be paid by the Google France and Google Ireland subsidiaries, was made possible by a court agreement allowing a company to negotiate a fine without having to stand trial or plead "guilty".

For the French financial authorities, Google has not paid more than 189 million euros in taxes between 2011 and 2016. The multinational has a withdrawal period of 10 days.

This investigation led to a raid on Google offices in Paris in May 2016. About 100 police officers and computer experts had been deployed for this "broad investigation", particularly for the amount of data collected and the amount of data collected. complexity of the structure. from the company.

Minister Darmanin had paved the way for an agreement with the company in 2017. "Many large European countries" have done so, he said.

Google, like other US multinationals such as Amazon or Facebook, is regularly accused in France of undervaluing its revenues to pay less taxes. The US group, whose European headquarters are in Ireland – one of the lowest income tax countries in the world (12.5%) – said it had always "respected French law".

Other technology giants have agreed to sign agreements with the French Treasury in recent years, including Apple, which has paid 500 million euros to pay 10 years of taxes.

To derail the tax practices of multinational Internet companies, the French government voted at the end of 2018 a tax called "GAFA" (acronym for Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) entered into force this year.

Paris, in conflict with the United States on this issue, has promised to abandon this tax if an international agreement is reached on the tax status of the digital giants.