Idiots X : French censure

The camera of a public service television captures a French Minister, and not a little one, that of Interior, very close to Sarkozy, and quite obnoxious like his president, making a derogatory comment about North-African immigrants.

The movie is shown by Le Monde. And a political uproar ensues. And what happens ?

More than one million hits on the net to see the sequence.
The opposition calling for the Minister’s, Brice Hortefeux, resignation.
His party defending him stating that the images had been cut and put together just to embarrass him.
His party stating that the images had been taken with a portable phone, thus taken illegally in a sense.

But when the public TV shows the entire sequence and such line of defence cannot stand any longer, what happens ?

Mr Copé, the President’s party leader at the French House, staets that the Internet is a “danger for democracy”. Funny for someone who has his own website that includes videos. In other words, Internet is a danger when it is not controlled by the President friends….He added on a separate occasion that there is the need to debate “the role that we are going to leave to Internet in the area of information”.

Another (in)famous friend of and special advisor of Sarkozy, a certain Guaino, states that the “absolute transparency (of the internet) is the beginning of totalitarism”, nothing less.

As Le Monde dated 14/9/09 points out these statements are in line with a position taken by Sakozy, well known for the way he appreciates criticism, since 2007. He can ask (and obtain from) his friends who own TVs and newspapers to stop the publication of information (or the firing of journalists, like the Director of Paris Match, a few years ago, for publishing embarrassing pictures !) but he cannot do anything against the WEB.

How jealous he and his servants must be of the Chinese leaders, and even of the little Tunisian president, for their control of the net ….

Funnily enough, Sarko and his friends look more and more like El Berlusca and his friends: what matters is not whether an information is true or not, what matters is what information one lets it through. This is the real danger for democracy. Once again Sarko and El Berlusca look alike: little (not only physically) dictators.

Photo: bonaberi.com