Still an Asterix Village
Updated June 6, 2011, 10:12 PM
Pierre Haski, a former deputy editor of the daily Libération, is the co-founder and chief executive of the French independent news Web site Rue89.com.
France’s broadcasting authority is applying the law by calling on the country’s TV and radio broadcasters to stop using the words “Facebook” and “Twitter” on the air unless the news story justifies it. French law bans hidden advertising, and Facebook and Twitter are not (yet) generic names.
But this narrow legalistic approach gives France an Asterix village outlook, as in the popular cartoon when the whole of Gaul was under Roman occupation except for a tiny Breton village still resisting the globalization of the time. Read More