France: Introduced Bill Securing and Regulating the Digital Space including interoperability regulation

On 10 May 2023, the Bill Securing and Regulating the Digital Space, including interoperability regulation, was introduced in the French Senate. The Bill aims to transpose obligations outlined in the European Digital Service Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to align national laws with these regulations. The Bill includes interoperability obligations for cloud computing, storage, databases, and other software services. The Bill outlines the requirements for interoperability and data portability and mandates cloud service providers to provide free application programming interfaces and detailed information about their services to facilitate communication with third-party services. The Bill also stipulates that cloud service providers must regularly publish and update a technical interoperability reference offer, outlining the conditions for compliance with the interoperability requirements. The Bill further stipulates what and how much the service providers are allowed to charge for data transfers. Cloud computing service providers are prohibited from charging data transfer fees in excess of the costs directly associated with transferring data when a client switches to another provider. Moreover, data transfer fees must adhere to a maximum pricing amount set by the Minister responsible for the digital sector based on proposals from the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications, Posts, and Press Distribution.