US tech giants are ramping up their resistance to France’s plans for a digital services tax.

On Monday, senior executives from Amazon, Google and Facebook spoke at a hearing in Washington to outline the impact a French levy could have on their European businesses, urging Paris to withdraw the plans.

Jennifer McCloskey, vice-president for policy lobby group the Information Technology Industry Council, said: “Today’s hearing is about more than the French digital services tax. It is about preventing widescale application of unilateral excise taxes.”

President Donald Trump has threatened to retaliate to the plans with tariffs on French products, including wine. The office of US trade representative called the hearing into France’s tax as part of a section 301 investigation aimed at assessing whether it constitutes a trade practice that hurts the US.

France pushed ahead with plans for a domestic tax on tech giant revenues after Europe-wide efforts to formulate a policy faltered.

France’s legislation, passed in July, would levy a three per cent tax on the revenue of tech titans such a Google and Facebook, with an estimated return to the government of €500 million per year. It will apply to companies with global revenue above €750 million, of which €25 million is made in France.

The UK has also forged ahead with unilateral plans for a tax that would be aimed at “large multi-national enterprises” which make more than £500 million in global revenues from digital activities, with more than £25 million of that deriving from UK users.

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