[Gallimard's] priorities for the SNE include an agreement for digitizing out-of-print titles, but despite political pressure "let us not confuse speed with rushing," and "allow technical and financial reasons to interfere with the aim of including French 20th century heritage in digital libraries and thwarting the worrying ambitions of Google Books."
He called for more dialogue with booksellers at a time when "a few major players want to control our pricing policies in order to impose their vertical integration model," and for VAT on ebooks to be reduced from 19.6% to the 5.5% levied on print.
Gallimard, who took over as SNE chief from Serge Eyrolles, welcomed the recent industry-wide agreement to achieve interoperability of the various ebook distributors. "We must overcome divisions and form ties between the profession’s structures," he said.
But interoperability was not enough for former culture minister Jacques Toubon. "Publishers should get together to create a single distribution platform," to compete with the search engines and other powerful groups, he told The Bookseller.
