The conservative candidate for the presidency and Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, comes to address the conference. He talks quickly and I’m taking notes on the simultaneous translation, and not keeping up.

He begins by saying the Internet is important. He focuses on the need for France to catch up in Internet as a business opportunity and culture. The government should make the France a leader in Inteornet. It should have boosted things. The miracle is that we nevertheless have people like you, Loic, were able to invest in Internet despite the lag. The lag is also cultural because we did not build the tools for the Internet. We had a difficult debate on IP rights. I was very much in favor of protecting IP because there’s no creativity without protection. But law enforcement isn’t the only possibility. There are win-win solutions that I wish we had spent time devising. The Internet must be one of the four or five priorities of our R&D efforts. France recently set up several global centers of excellent in IT, but France is not investing in the Internet. We are last but one in the effect of the Internet in boosting our economy in Europe. We need e-government, Internet in education, in medicine. I want to invest in free sites for the public. We’re thinking of digitizing our archive. What is private must be respected but what is public must be genuinely public. I want broadband coverage. We should learn from what works in the US.(“That doesn’t mean there’s only one culture,” he quickly adds.)

I plan to restore investor confidence in our country. More accountable, more transparent. Greater confidence in employees. I want France to stop being the country that enriches Switzerland, Belgium the UK, putting to the edge those who want to make money. My message is simple: We need your capital, your intelligence in France. I want us to have a major higher education reform. Our young should be in the level playing field. Universities should be viewed as tax-exempt areas. Encourage young people to take patents. Tax breaks for young people creating companies.

Huge possibilities. Internet breaks down distances. It’s sort of university campus on a global level. Generates intelligence. Brings people closer together and can be an instrument of emancipation. I’m thinking of China. I’m thinking of poor countries. Anyone can disseminate their movies in place of Hollywood. Anyone can be a journalist. Anyone can post his goods. A new area of freedom of expression opens.

It’s a means of cultural diversity. It cannot be a single culture or economy. It must derive its creativity from the multiplication of small companies that innovate. Some become monopolies that inhibit innovation, and we must not that happens.

The dissemination of anti-Semitic information is not ascceptable. Not everything is permitted. I’m not afraid of the word “internet regulation.”

Internet makes school and education even more necessary because of the flow of knowledge that needs interpretation and assessment.

Let us make the new Internet continent the continent of new liberties, that includes rather than excludes. Let us make the Internet continent of the transmission of knowledge, and not the transmission of lies. The continent of sharing of cultures, not of the leveling of values. [Wow. Does he know he’s contradicting himself sentence after sentence?]

You have in your hands the liberty and progress of the world. Realize you must think of what others might do who do not share your values and ethics. The liberty the Internet serves must be that of universal rights. Internet with rules. Huge responsibility on your shoulders. The new citizen of the world is aware of his responsibility and his liberty is bound by values.

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He leaves without any questions. And Esme Vos, who I am sitting next to, says Sarkozy speaks perfect English.

I feel like i’ve been lectured by a guy who has no actual understanding of the Internet. I don’t know about French politics, but personally, I sort of hated him. (This is not a well-grounded opinion.) [Tags: leweb3 france politics sarkozy]

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