France and the European Union are ready to fight back over the latest US tariff threats on French products, French government ministers said on Tuesday.
On Monday, the U.S government said it may slap punitive duties of up to 100% on $2.4 billion (1.9 billion pounds) of imports from France of champagne, handbags, cheese and other products, after concluding that France's new digital services tax would harm US tech companies.
French finance minister Bruno Le Maire described the US proposals as "unacceptable".
"In case of new American sanctions, the European Union would be ready to riposte," Le Maire told Radio Classique.
French junior economy minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told Sud Radio that France would be "pugnacious" in its dealings with the US on the matter, and that France would not back down on its digital tax plans.
The US Trade Representative's office had said on Monday that its "Section 301" investigation found that the French tax was "inconsistent with prevailing principles of international tax policy". It said it found the French tax proposal was "unusually burdensome for affected US companies," including Alphabet Inc's Google, Facebook Inc, Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc.
France's 3% levy applies to revenue from digital services earned by firms with more than 25 million euros ($27.86 million) in French revenue and 750 million euros (644 million pounds) worldwide.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world
