French hands on the Internet

In a struggle for power, first seize the language. Past master in the field of defining terms, France has come up with a new concept in its guerrilla campaign to hold back American cultural power and the technology that spreads it. It is called solidarité numérique, or digital solidarity.

At the United Nations Internet summit in Tunis this week France is pushing the rest of the world to back it in a "Digital Solidarity Fund" for spreading  web access in poor countries. Today, Philippe Douste Blazy, the Foreign Minister, made refreshingly clear that the real target is Uncle Sam.

"Do we believe in multilateralism or do we believe that one country -- the richest and the strongest -- is going to run the internet?" Douste Blazy asked on France Inter's 7-9, the public radio morning show that sets the chattering class agenda like Radio 4's Today.

France's internet fund would help "bridge the digital divide", said Douste, a cardiologist with a strange nasal twang and the looks of a schooboy. Most of all, France wants to stop American companies and their government "deciding everything about the management of the internet." It is as if all the telephones in the world ran through a single switchboard, operated by an American, he added.

Who will pay for the fund for de-Americanising, er ...democratising, the internet ? The taxpayer, of course, said Douste. France wants a levy on internet transactions that will be distributed by the new international body that will administer the web. This will of course be run by state fonctionnaires.  

In case listeners failed to understand, the American essence of the internet was spelled out by the Alain Rey, an eccentric scholar whose morning language slot is one of France Inter's delights. Rey, a good leftie-intello and founding editor of the venerable Robert dictionary but not a French-only fundamentalist, expounds daily on etymology (imagine that on Today). He reminded listeners that la toile (web) and filet (net) denote something physical for catching prey. "This web is is 'made in the United States'," he said darkly.

Back in the 1960s, General de Gaulle came up with the idea of preaching global cultural diversity in order to shore up the waning influence of France and French. The ploy has worked up to a point but proved highly expensive. The French taxpayer foots a lavish bill for la Francophonie, a Gallic cultural commonwealth that includes such old French-speaking nations as Bulgaria. On a more strategic tack, Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system, which France has pushed to offer a European answer to America's GPS, will cost billions in EU taxes.

Jacques Chirac's latest wheeze is the CFII, better known as CNN à la française. Appalled by the way that CNN and the BBC have "colonised" global television news, Chirac ordered his Government to produce a French version. The Chaîne Française Internationale d'Information is open in 2007 with a starting budget of 90 million euros per year, broadcasting in English as well as French. It is not expected to make any money, simply convey a French view of the world's affairs.

If somebody has to counter the American steam-roller, then France, a civilised old democracy with relatively unshackled media, is probably the best nation for the job. Apart from Fidel Castro, few would want the old Soviet Union back campaigning for a new world information order, the 1970s UN-backed scheme for giving governments control over the media.

The problem is that France lacks the commercial firepower to rival the Anglo-Saxons, so in the culture wars it defaults to its time-honoured habit of state direction and funding. Of course somebody always controls the media ultimately. But governments and monopolies have proven poor masters, while private enterprise has shown itself to be the least bad system, to use Churchill's remark on democracy, since The Times pioneered the independent press in the 1780s.

Comments

[Craig McGinty]

Is not the heavy hand of the State behind many of the troubles that France faces at the moment?

Why is it that French politicians seem to think that throwing taxpayers money at a problem will sort it out?

The quicker the restrictive hand of 'fonctionnaires' is taken off the way France works the better.

Despite being a true lover of the French way of life, I fear for its future.

[Peter Bell]

As long as the US control things, we will never have proper IPv6 support, or real (I.E. not hacked in) support for MBCS or non latin alphabet DNS names.

It's also worth noting how ICANN folded over the .xxx domain under pressure from the religous right in the US.

[Chris Hogan]

I thought it was an established principle that whichever nation first devises a standard or communication medium administers it in future. Greenwich time is the universal standard, as are the French metric measurements.

Why on earth shouldn't the Americans - who first made the Internet practicable with the TCP/IP protocol, and who have the most experience with it - governs it's standards?

This seems to be merely another case of French envy of another country's achievements.

[Paul Scholz]

Here in America, nobody really gives these dramatic statements from France much credence.

There is simply no sympathy among the US government or the American people for transfering control of the DNS system to any "international" body. It isn't going to happen. Ever.

France and the rest are certainly free to build their own Internet. Nothing is stopping them.

[David Clark]

Here in the States, we seem to get a lot done because either government comes up with an idea then tosses it aside and the entrepreneurs snatch it up, or the brains do it all in the first place then the government takes some role in it.
The former is the case in the DNS.WWW issue at hand. Ever heard of ARPANET?
We didn't invent the eclair and they didn't invent the WWW.
Tough luck,mes amis.

[Bob Tall]

Someone asked:

Why on earth shouldn't the Americans - who first made the Internet practicable with the TCP/IP protocol, and who have the most experience with it - governs it's standards?

The answer is a little more complex than control. TCP/IP and it flaws are used as a tool in the role of US national defence. The principle, is to make finding a machine, like a needle in a haystack and allow anonymous routing of information. The present Internet grew out of a DARPA experiment and is used extensively by the US military and CIA.

As such, TCP/IP and its standards are a matter of National Security for other countries.

It is only appropriate that they have a say to a foreign "munition" inside their borders.

[Dreck]

Why is it when I hear the French talk about 'Internationalizing' ICANN, I don't believe that they are referring to Brazil or India? France brings nothing to the I.T. table except for a keen sense of entitlement. They demand the opportunity to do to the internet economy what they have done to their own. I think that most of us will pass on this.