Christine Albanel is put  under pressure over attacks on civil  liberties in the French Creation and Internet (3-strikes)  law and insults the opposition. But government amendments carried and opposition ones defeated.

The second day of the debate in the French Parliament on the Creation and Internet law, which seeks to cut file-sharers off the Internet for downloading copyrighted content, was interrupted by a  double gaffe from the  French culture minister, Christine Albanel. Under fire from opposition Socialist and Left parties over her 3-strikes proposals,  she accused the opposition members  of creating a caricature of  the Hadopi authority as 'some sort of Gestapo'. In France, the use of the word 'gestapo'  represents a serious insult, and she was forced to retract her statement. 

It came in the middle of a debate on Article 2 of the law, which sets out the functions and structure of the Hadopi - the authority which will oversee the 3-strikes measures. Madame Albanel  was responding to an attack from the opposition that the Creation and Internet  law made an assumption that the person accused is guilty, unless they can prove their own innocence, reversing the legal principle of presumption of innocence in  European law. It followed a long series of opposition accusations that the Hadopi represents an attack on civil liberties -  which also include the lack of privacy

French opposition politicians accused the Sarkozy regime of waging war on France's youth, in the first day of debate on the Creation and Internet law in the French Parliament . In a polarised debate - 'Internet users versus 'la creation' - 415 amendments were tabled.

***There is a live webcast of the French Parliament debate on the Creation and Internet law. ***

Will Madame Albanel, the French culture minister, get her way? The French Creation and Internet law (also known as the Hadopi or 3-strikes law) is creating a deep divide the French Parliament (Assembl?e Nationale), including a riftt within President Sarkozy's own UMP party.

The law is an 'anti-piracy' measure, and seeks to put in place a graduated response or 3-strikes regime of penalties for French Internet users who download. It is particularly targetting peer-to-peer file-sharers. The polarisation of views was evident in watching the first day of the debate, which was yesterday (11 March). Opposition politicians accused Mme Albanel and the Sarkozy government of 'liberticide' and waging war on France's youth. They attacked the law for its proposals to police the 'Net, creating 'Orwellian

The Creation and Internet law - also known as the Hadopi law - which proposes to bring in  graduated response /3 strikes  measures to enforce copyright, goes to the French Parliament - Assemblee Nationale - this week.

The debate was due to begin on 10 March, according to the Assemblee Nationale agenda. However, a debate on hospitals took priority. The Creation and Internet law debate  is now expected to begin this evening (11 March). 

The Assemblee Nationale  website is here.

It looks like it will be available to view via a webstream. The webstream should be here . 

Note, this is a postponement from the previously reported date of 4 March. 

France's Minister of Culture Christine Albanel, wants public wifi hotspots to use a State-approved whitelist of websites. Like the white witch of Narnia, is she condemning her country to a hundred years of cyber-winter?

Reports in the French media say that Christine Albanel, the Minister of culture who is responsible for the graduated response,  Hadopi law , intends to make public access wifi services use whitelists  is  as a means of stopping people downloading copyrighted content. So desperate is she, that not one song or movie should be freely downloaded, that she wants to lock out the millions of businesses who have invested in e-commerce or promotional  sites, as well as other media sites and blogs which contribute to the Information Society. She wants to bring down ‘a white portcullis'  - medieval security for the 21^st century.

Her comments were reported on the French website PC Inpact , which has also got hold of the original report that briefed Mme Albanel . It also isn't clear just what wifi will have to implement the whitelist, whether it is just very large public ones, or private residential - which would mean a large majority of broadband users.

Her plan has been criticised by citizens groups as a ‘return to a state'controlled network'. 

It made me think of a character in the CS Lewis stories, the Chronicles of Narnia - the white witch, who condemned the land to a hundred years of winter. If she pursues the white list idea, then Mme Albanel, like the white witch, will condemn France to a long cyber-winter.

Sadly, this is not an extreme view, but a logical consequence. Whitelists are the opposite of blacklists. Whitelists contain what is permitted. Blacklists contain what is not permitted. So a whitelist will be a list of government-approved websites. Given the sheer scale of the Internet inside and outside France, the list will by necessity, only contain a small number of the total number of websites that exist.

Mme Albanel says

The latest report from Liberation suggests that the so-called Hadopi law, which will bring in anti-file-sharing sanctions, is to go before the Parliament on 4 March.

This is one week earlier than originally scheduled, and appears to meet the demands of the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who personally called for the law to be voted on in March.

The law, officially known as the 'Creation and Internet law' will bring in graduated response measures, sanctioning Internet users by terminating their Internet access, if they are alleged to have downloaded copyrighted material. It has been waiting since last October, when it went before the Senate, for its slot in the Assemblee Nationale. In order to get it through the legislature more quickly, it is only to get one reading in each of the two Parliamentary institutions.

The French campaigning group, La Quadrature du Net, has produced a new analysis which heavily criticises the law. La Quadrature says the law is "ineffective, unworkable and is attempting to address the wrong problem ". It believes the law will not contribute any economic benefits.