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By imposing a total ban on advertising on public-sector channels, the Act of 5 March 2009 constituted nothing short of a revolution on the French audiovisual scene. Originally, the ban was supposed to be implemented in two stages - applying to the period between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. starting on 5 January 2009, then a total ban starting on 30 November 2011, the date of the total switch from analog to digital television. As compensation, a new tax was introduced on advertising broadcast by the private-sector channels, and another new tax on electronic communication operators. Nevertheless, sponsored...

Slowly but surely, with the publication of the implementing decrees for the “HADOPI I” and “HADOPI II” Acts (see IRIS 2010-1:1/23 and IRIS 2009-7:12/20), the High Authority (“HADOPI”) is getting into working order, despite the efforts of its detractors. The “HADOPI II” Act of 28 October 2009 gave the criminal courts the task of ordering the suspension of Internet access for an Internet user who fails to comply with the obligation to ensure that access was not used for the illegal circulation of protected works. This is in addition to the offence of “specific negligence”, which attracts a penalty...

On 29 July 2010, Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, presented the regular report to the OSCE Permanent Council, the organisation’s main decision-making body. The report consists of overviews of issues raised in the participating countries, activities of the Representative in the last period and planned activities for the next reporting period. A large part of the report consists of the analysis of issues raised in 26 of the OSCE participating states. In the last period the Representative had to deal with several issues concerning media freedom, such as media pluralism,...

The European Court of Justice has handed down another decision in a long list rejecting of claims by Télévision française 1 (TF1) against the European Commission in relation to French state aid to the public service broadcaster France-Télévisions (see for example most recently IRIS 2010-7: 1/3, IRIS 2009-5: 5/5 and IRIS 2009-1: 0/104). On 13 September 2010, the General Court dismissed TF1’s action requesting that Commission Decision C(2006) 832 final of 22 March 2006 be annulled. The decision approved new financial support measures granted through the Centre national de la cinématographie (National...

On 15 June 2010, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) released its latest reports on France, Georgia, Poland and “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (fYROM), adopted in the fourth round of its monitoring of the laws, policies and practices to combat racism in the Member States of the Council of Europe (for commentary on earlier reports, see IRIS 2010-4: 1/3, IRIS 2009-10: 0/109, IRIS 2009-8: 5/4, IRIS 2009-5: 4/4, IRIS 2008-4: 6/5, IRIS 2006-6: 4/4 and IRIS 2005-7: 3/2). The main recommendations dealing with the (audiovisual) media and/or the Internet in these reports...