Reuters and AFP reported Thursday that an appeals court rejected Meta’s challenges to French interim orders, leaving requirements to negotiate publisher payments in place during a competition investigation.
The French Competition Authority (Autorité de la concurrence) issued the orders July 8, 2026, after complaints by the Alliance de la Presse d’Information Générale (APIG) and the Société des Droits Voisins de la Presse (DVP). Meta must negotiate in good faith, provide information needed to assess payments, preserve how the groups’ content is displayed while talks continue and report regularly to the authority.
The negotiations must cover DVP members’ content from Jan. 1, 2025, and APIG members’ content from Feb. 1, 2025. Earlier agreements covered DVP members through Dec. 31, 2024, and APIG members through Jan. 31, 2025. The authority said talks over new agreements stalled over payment amounts, covered uses and which Meta services were included. It also said the groups challenged Meta’s payment calculations and lacked information needed to evaluate its offers.
The authority said publishers’ content remained available on Meta services after payments stopped, causing financial harm to the groups. Those concerns form part of a preliminary case; the orders do not establish a competition-law violation or set a final payment amount. The authority’s July decision also cites its 2020 interim-measures case involving Google and press publishers.
France established neighboring rights for press publishers and agencies in a 2019 law that transposed an EU copyright directive. Meta had said it negotiated in good faith, shared information and offered short-term extensions to earlier agreements, which it said APIG and DVP rejected.
Reuters reported that a Meta spokesperson said the company would continue complying with the orders and negotiating in good faith while assessing next steps. The authority’s investigation into the merits remains pending, with no decision date specified. The orders remain in force until that decision or an earlier termination by the authority.
