FRANCE: Freedom of the press

From Paris, Carmen Negrin writes: "I have never heard of France trying "to block the distribution of electronic newspapers in English"! France has always been very liberal presswise. Anything and everything is available, and from almost any country. To my knowledge, the only thing that France has tried to stop on the web, are pornographic sites involving children. There has been recently a problem with the New York Times, which now owns the International Herald Tribune, and which prevented the International Herald Tribune from publishing an article by a French journalist contradicting the alleged illegal arms sales by France to Iraq. The article never came out in these papers but it did in Le Monde. Maybe this and other similar incidents explains the New York Times comment. The US press has also been rather free, but the 11th September seems to have changed things and let self censure install itself by fear of being judged un-American. The BBC helps balance the news. One thing is access to news from anywhere in the world and another is the monopoly of the given information. The problem is not so much globalization per se but the real possible access to diversity of news. The lack of diversity of information is what has happened in Italy and, to a lesser extent and a much discrete manner, in Spain when Aznar came in.

RH: My guess is that he attempt to ban the distribution of electronic newspapers in English was quickly abandoned and did not get much publicity.

Ronald Hilton - 7/6/03