French MPs wish to impose an additional flat tax on quick meals retailers – doubled if the restaurant is positioned close to a faculty – in an try to combat to proliferation of quick meals in French cities and cities.
French MPs are debating a brand new funds legislation for 2026 and the Green Party proposed a new modification focusing on quick meals franchises, corresponding to McDonald’s, Burger King or the favored French chain O’Tacos.
Under this modification, quick meals franchises could be topic to an additional flat tax, on prime of the standard taxes that every one companies pay.
Opening a quick meals franchise restaurant would instantly entail a tax of €50,000 after which €10,000 annually that the restaurant operates. It wouldn’t have an effect on independently operated eating places that promote quick meals, corresponding to kebab outlets.
It additionally proposes to double these taxation quantities if the quick meals franchise decides to open a restaurant inside 300 meters of a faculty as a result of “scientific research level to a statistical correlation between childhood weight problems and the geographical proximity of quick meals retailers and colleges.”
The modification goals to curb the proliferation of quick meals retailers, “which pose actual public well being challenges.”
At this stage it isn’t clear whether or not the modification will cross, and even when the Budget itself will get by way of parliament with out bringing down one other French authorities.
A McDonald’s “20 minutes away” for everybody
Despite its popularity because the land of nice eating and contemporary elements, France is an enthusiastic client of quick meals – and is without doubt one of the prime shoppers of McDonald’s on this planet.
Burger King has grown “from 222 eating places in 2019 to 515 in 2023” and McDonald’s “introduced in 2025 that it plans to open practically one restaurant per week,” the legislation proposal says.
The modification additionally comes at a time when “failures within the conventional restaurant sector have reached traditionally excessive ranges. In phrases of variety of eating places, conventional eating places have now been overtaken by quick meals eating places,” the MPs write within the legislation proposal.
This development may worsen with McDonald’s planning a serious growth in France, with the said aim being that each particular person dwelling in France can have “a McDonald’s inside 20 minutes of their residence.”
Local mayors have tried to oppose the opening of quick meals eating places of their cities. For instance, Laroque, a medieval city of 1700 inhabitants about an hour away from Montpellier within the South of France, is presently combating in opposition to the opening of a McDonald’s.
