Microsoft apparently has quite a following in the French government, which has recently decided to tax tablets…but only those that aren’t running a Windows operating system.

It has been the case for some time now that France has taxed mp3 players in an attempt to compensate for piracy of media, but according to French magazine Numerama, that existing legislation does not extend to computers.

As a result, the government needed a way to define what devices qualify as computers, which led to the decision to deem a device a computer only if it runs Microsoft Windows. This means that, as far as the French government is concerned, a tablet running any other operating system — including Linux, Mac OS, or Android — is just a device used by pirates who need to be taxed.

The decision to tax tablets that don’t run Windows obviously affects those companies that develop Android tablets, including the French-based company, Archos. The company’s CEO, Henri Crohas, expressed his frustration with the situation, maintaining that it would be absurd to claim that tablets that run Windows are less involved in copying media than those running Android (or other operating systems).

More importantly, as Crohas pointed out, the decision to tax these tablets would tilt the market in favor of Windows-based tablets, and would subsequently cause damage to Archos, which has to pay $3 million in taxes in 2009 for its other products.

Source: The Inquirer