Focus on France Ian Sparks reports from Paris

EURO-REPORT

FOCUS ON... France

Ian Sparks reports from Paris on the government’s continuing efforts to control the Internet.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has angered Internet industry giants with demands for tighter government regulation of the ‘virtual world’.

In remarks that met with an intensely hostile reaction from the billionaire bosses of Google and Facebook, Mr Sarkozy said lack of Internet regulation risked ‘plunging the world into anarchy’.

The president aired his controversial views to the world’s multimedia executives meeting in Paris ahead of the G8 summit in late May. He told the audience: “Now that the Internet is an integral part of most people’s lives, it would be contradictory to exclude governments from this huge forum.

“Nobody could nor should forget that these governments are the only legitimate representatives of the will of the people in our democracies.

“To forget this is to take the risk of democratic chaos and hence anarchy.”

But Google executive Eric Schmidt said after Mr Sarkozy’s speech: “No one will win if some stupid rule stunts the growth of the web.”

Mr Sarkozy then caused more friction when he suggested Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook social networking site helped fuel the wave of revolutions across the Arab world.

But Mr Zuckerberg responded to the French media later: “It’s not a Facebook thing, it’s an Internet thing. I think Facebook was neither necessary nor sufficient for any of those things to happen. If it weren’t Facebook, it would be something else.”

Mr Sarkozy’s proposals came after he angered Internet users last year with the creation of a new ‘web police’ with the power to prosecute people found to be illegally downloading films and music. Web users who ignore three warnings to stop illegal downloads can now be taken to court for theft of copyrighted material, where they can be fined or have their Internet connection to be cut off. Opponents branded the law ‘unfair, unworkable and out-of-date’.

Also in Paris, French industry minister Eric Besson has said he hopes to raise at least €2.5 billion from the country’s auction of fourth-generation mobile phone frequencies.

Mr Besson said in a speech during a visit to an Alcatel-Lucent phone research lab near the French capital: “The strategic asset that these frequencies represent won’t be sold on the cheap.”

Mobile phone operators are desperate to obtain a share of the so-called 4G mobile broadband spectrum to cope with the rapid surge of data traffic on the web. The 4G frequencies will allow operators to upgrade

their networks so that consumers can surf the Internet and download videos onto their mobile phones at much higher speeds, an increasingly important selling point for telecoms operators.

Once the tender offer is officially launched in June, operators will have until September to file their bids and the government has set limits on how much ‘spectrum’ one operator can bid for.

Mr Besson has said any one operator won’t be able to bid for more than half of the total amount of frequencies available in order that the auction can attract bids from a wide range of French telecoms companies.

He said in his speech: “Conditions for allocation have never been as favourable to competition.”

Results of the 2.6Mhz spectrum auction will be announced in October while the results of the 800Mhz auction will be revealed at the start of 2012, Mr Besson added.

“Now that the internet is an integral part of most people’s lives, it would be contradictory to exclude governments from this huge forum.”

Leaving out the Ritz

Across France, major players in the hotel industry said they had been left with ‘a bitter taste’ after the new ‘Palace’ hotel rating was introduced in May – one step higher than a five-star rating – and awarded to just eight hotels around the country.

The Palace label monitored by the French culture ministry is said to denote ‘the pinnacle of excellence’. But the absence of the Paris Ritz and George V has already undermined the new rating system, critics say.

In Paris, the Bristol, Meurice, Plaza Athenee and Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome were chosen, along with the Airelles and Cheval Blanc at Courchevel, the Hotel du Palais in Biarritz and the Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

However the head of the Dorchester group, owners of the Meurice and Plaza Athenee said: “The fact that the Ritz and the George V are not on the list removes all credibility from this award.”

The Ritz has made no comment but the director general of the George V told Le Figaro newspaper: “We don’t understand. We have had no explanation. Our reputation is solid. For years we have been regularly classed as the best hotel in the world. We spend €6 million a year maintaining our ‘palace’.”

The president of the jury that produced the list, Dominique Fernandez, said: “All our decisions were taken by a majority of our ten members.

“We visited 11 hotels. The Negresco in Nice doesn’t have a spa, so it could not be a candidate. The three hotels left out, the Ritz, George V and Lana at Courchevel, did not completely meet our criteria.” n