Britain's Booksellers Association pleaded to the government to help aid independent booksellers fight against Amazon.

Britain's Booksellers Association has pleaded with the government to help independent booksellers fight against Amazon after France pleaded approximately $12 million funding from the government against the giant retailers.

Tim Godfray, chief executive of the Booksellers Association revealed that independent bookstores in UK are closing down at the rate of over one per week because Amazon is posing as a major threat to them. He cautioned that if measures are not taken to stop Amazon's "relentless expansion", more bookstores will be forced to shut down, resulting in agencies and publishers running out of business.

France's culture minister Aurélie Filippetti agrees with the sentiments of Godfray, accusing Amazon of creating a "visual monopoly."

"Everyone has had enough of Amazon, which by dumping practices, slashes prices to get a foothold in markets only to raise them as soon as they have established a virtual monopoly," she said in a speech to booksellers in Bordeaux. "The book and reading sector is facing competition from certain sites using very possible means to enter the French and European book market... it is destroying bookshops."

Filippetti reveals that she is planning to ban Amazon from being allowed to offer free postage and threatens to end the system of 5% discount on books. France is known to have a fixed price law since 1981 which states that buyers would pay the same price for books whether they buy in from an online retailer, a high-street shop or a small book seller. The law also allows a maximum of 5% discount that can be given on each book. While Amazon is not breaking the law by offering their 5 % discount, smaller booksellers argue that they cannot complete with Amazon as they are not at the liberty to offer a whole 5 % discount as well as provide free postage.  Filippetti also said that some of the funding received from the government will be used to upgrade some traditional bookstores and also make them available online.

Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller, said the UK government should take notes from the French initiatives and "wake up" to the damage Amazon is causing to the book trade and the retail sector in general. "The publishing industry has been trying to tell the government that this isn't benign growth," he said. "[They need to look more proactively to protect the whole high street."