Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't read the full article thanks to the paywall so maybe I'm missing it, but: where is the urban protectionism here? More generally, my limited understanding of French politics is that they have a very strong agricultural interest that's disproportionate to the populace, similar to the US. The limited news I read about French domestic politics indicates that their government generally accommodates and subsidizes…
People living in the cities will now be able to buy a book significantly cheaper than someone living in a rural area. And a bookstore in a city will be able to outcompete a rural one, since they'll have more local sales but the rural bookstore will not be able compete on price for the mail orders.
* Accepting Amazon's claim: this strikes me more as the removal of a rural subsidy (cheap delivery to hard to reach places, Amazon skipping out on every tax they can to lower prices) than the imposition of an urban one. Maybe a distinction without difference economically, but it's an important political distinction.
* Not accepting the claim: wouldn't this support rural bookstores? Amazon's conceit here is that people want convenience, which a local rural bookstore surely provides over an urban one for rural dwellers. Whether they "compete" with urban bookstores is sort of a red herring, given that (small) bookstores qua businesses tend to be labors of passion that aren't looking to edge out some distant urban competitor. That doesn't mean they can (or should) go broke, just that the economics aren't necessarily a dog fight between rural and urban.