Because they are going to need one after the recent travesty which occurred yesterday. Then again, Europeans are known for rioting and protesting, so lets hope something happens, because the recent bill which passed the National Assembly in true rogue fashion is an attack on civil liberties, and given that it targets internet piracy there is no guarantees that it won't show up in America some point down the line.
I usually wouldn't be indulging myself with French politics unless it was for an important purpose, like impressing a couple French female interns at work with my knowledge of their country (I actually attempted this a little while back when I was working until, sadly I found out that these persons were already involved with other people), but this recent story caught my eye. Apparently, the French National Assembly (the French equivalent of the House of Representatives), in true rogue fashion (more on this in a bit) passed a bill (called the HADOPI Bill) which will allow Internet Service Providers to shut off consumers' internet connections if they are accused of illegally downloading pirated material. I have italicized "accused" because of the means in which the French government intends to obtain this information to "accuse" their people. They intend to use national surveillance program to monitor user activities on the internet (sound familiar?).
I don't have any information on the type of surveillance program the government intends to instate, but it would have me believe that is going to be similar to the one we had (or should I say "have"?). But it is a clear breach of civil liberties. Heck, France's socialist party calls it "an assault on public and individual liberties." I guess France said to themselves "Hey, if the United States can spy on their own people and get away with it I think we can too!".
I am not completely educated on French politics and the process by which a bill becomes law, but for a bill to become law it needs to pass the French equivalent of the Senate and House of Representatives (termed the Sénat and Assemblée nationale, or National Assembly in English). It passed the Senate on October 30, 2008 without much fanfare as it would seem, but, as noted above, it passed the National Assembly in true rogue fashion. So, like our House of Representatives, the French have over 500 representatives in the National Assembly (577 to be exact), however the bill passed 12-4 with 561 not voting. How did this happen? Well the bill was in heavy discussion - this blog mentions over 41 hours, which I am led to believe was accumulated over the period of 3+ weeks since its introduction to the Assembly on March 10, 2009 - and only a handful of representatives remained (16 to be exact) when it was decided by Secretary of State Roger Karoutchi that an immediate vote was required at 10:45PM that night. The vote was not scheduled for another week, which is why the rest of the Assembly decided to call it a night at that time. As I said, it was passed in true rogue fashion.
Besides the fact that the bill intends to create a surveillance program meant to breach French civil liberties, the bill is a rather connected with French politics, which makes the "rogue" part of it stand out a bit more. The media industry is a little bigger and more influential in France, especially considering that the President's wife (Carla Bruni) is a musician who recently released her third album last year, so it is pretty obvious that the President certainly stands to gain financially from such legislation. There was also a petition (PDF) signed by over 10,000 musicians, artists, and other media professionals in support of the bill.
According to Wikipedia the next step is for 7 senators and 7 representatives are to meet to discuss any differences in the legislation passed by the two houses. I am not at all familiar with the steps involved with it becoming law, but it seems like it is rather close since it easily passed the National Assembly, albeit in an illegitimate fashion. This has me very concerned about our rights on the internet. If you are not aware, as there was a similar directive which passed in Sweden recently called the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) which requires Swedish ISP's turn over the IP addresses of "suspected" file sharers to the authorities. And so far, this legislation is already being linked to a massive drop in internet traffic in the country. AND, apparently this legislation has already lead to a couple arrests (sorry, Google translate doesn't want to work on this page for some reason). Similar laws have been brought up and failed in other countries, but it is not entirely unlikely that we won't see similar legislation brought up here in the States. Sure, we have had the RIAA and the MPAA doing their scummy business, but their work has come and pretty much gone, and most of it was nothing more than a slap on a wrist - pay the excessive fine and be done with it (or appeal it and defeat it), unless of course the party was involved with an international piracy ring rooted out by global operations such as Operation Buccaneer. I hope we don't have to deal with this somewhere down the line because we have seen how it can sometimes turn out.
France may have had its health care industry portrayed in a positive light in Michael Moore's "Sicko", but its technology industry (and its government) just got a very big black eye.