Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Monopoly
Just when you think that Sarkozy can't get any worse, he does:
Le ministère des affaires étrangères a fait savoir que la France ne souhaite pas signer de déclaration de l'ONU favorable à la défense des droits de l'Homme sur Internet tant qu'il n'y aura pas de consensus sur le fait que la liberté d'expression et de communication ne prime pas sur les autres droits, en particulier la propriété intellectuelle.[Google Translate: The Foreign Ministry said that France does not wish to sign a UN declaration favorable to the defense of human rights on the Internet until there is no consensus on the fact that freedom expression and communication does not take precedence over other rights, including intellectual property.]
And in case you were wondering what that might mean, here it is spelled out:
Car le gouvernement a beau jeu de rappeler que "la liberté, le respect de la vie privée et de la propriété intellectuelle" sont tous des droits fondamentaux de même niveau, et que "la France estime qu'il ne doit pas y avoir de hiérarchie entre ces droits".[Google Translate: Because the government has an easy to remember that "freedom, respect for privacy and intellectual property" rights are all at the same level, and that "France considers that it should not be a hierarchy between these rights. "]
That is, Sarkozy believes that the right to an intellectual monopoly - the right to *exclude* people from knowledge - is absolutely equal to the fundamental right to freedom.
This is a sad come-down for a nation whose modern origins were based on the idea of freedom in contradistinction to the privilege and oppression of the Ancien Régime it replaced. It also runs completely counter to France's interests.
After all, it is no secret that French language and culture are in steep decline from their former positions of global leadership. Indeed, France spends considerable amounts of money promoting "Francophonie" in an attempt to halt the slide.
The worst thing the French government can do would be to make it *harder* to access French culture in the form of literature, music, films, etc through increasingly punitive enforcement of outdated copyright laws. Instead, it should be encouraging all the relevant industries to make their wares available as widely as possible - if necessary through subsidies.
And yet Sarkozy seems to regard supporting his fat-cat chums in the copyright industries as more important than truly helping the broader culture French culture, or even - heaven forfend - supporting universal ideals like freedom.
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