The French vote those people who enact these laws into office because they approve them.

If people wanted it anyway why would they need a law to enforce it?

I want to shop locally. I don’t vote for a law to require myself to shop locally. I just go ahead and shop locally.

The only need for a law is to force someone who doesn’t want to shop locally to do so against their will!

People are driven by biological impulses. It seems reasonable to me to want to protect yourself from your own future impulses.

I remember reading about an experiment at Google where they reduced snacking by simply putting an opaque cover on the snacks. When people see chocolate bars, there is a chance they'll turn and get one. They may consider they made the decision rationally but they didn't.

In moments of rationality, it seems reasonable to me to devise and legislate ways to protect yourself from future impulses. It's a paradox for sure, but our impulsive/rationale nature is the source of the paradox, and is unavoidable.

When you "ask" the market by offering food, people may rush to the high-calory fastfood offerings. In a moment of reason, you may want to regulate this (e.g. ban fast food ads around kids), so that you don't live in an obese-ridden society.

That sounds a lot like consent manufacturing to me. "The Berlin Wall is to protect you from future impulses that could get you exploited by the bourgeoisie."

To prevent a tragedy of the commons type situation. I may think that local businesses are better than online monopolies. However, my purchasing decisions, whether I change to local or buy online, will have a negligible effect on the market. Might as well save myself some money if I won't be saving local businesses.

If everyone thinks like this then the tragedy of the commons occurs. Everyone prefers local businesses to exist over the online monopoly, but nobody changes their purchasing behavior from what is cheap and convenient. By voting restrictions on online monopolies people avert the tragedy of the commons by coordinating (and compelling) what they want.

The commons are resources that are owned and shared by all.

What’s the commons in this case?

Other people’s bookshops? Other people’s books? They aren’t commons.

I think it’s more of a collective action problem [0]. People believe that it is better for society in the long run if everyone buys books at bookshops but for each individual it doesn’t make sense for them to buy books at a bookshop.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem