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On 22 October the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (audiovisual regulatory body ­ CSA) published a recommendation for editors and distributors of television services broadcasting "cinematographic works that may not be shown to anyone under the age of 18 and pornographic or extremely violent programmes that may only be shown to discerning adults, likely to be damaging to the physical, mental or moral development of people under the age of 18" ("Category V programmes"). This recommendation follows on from a deliberation adopted by the CSA on 25 March 2003 providing that "for the broadcasting in...

The members of the National Assembly's Finance Committee have rejected the scheme the Government had included in the draft budget for 2004 aimed at reducing evasion of payment of the licence fee. Adoption of the amendment would have enabled the tax authorities to obtain the names and addresses of pay television operators' clients with a view to improving payment of the television licence fee. The operators of cable, satellite and encrypted television would have been invited to pass on their entire client files to the tax authorities, making it possible to cut the number of people evading payment...

A bill "intended to give a legal framework to protection from the unacceptable use of one's image and to reconcile this with freedom of expression" was tabled this summer by two Members of Parliament. It has been sent to the legal committee for examination. The aim of the text, which covers protection of the image of objects as well as people, is to make it impossible for anyone to "take legal action claiming protection from unacceptable use of an image without furnishing proof of malicious intent and actual prejudice", according to the wording of the explanatory memorandum of the bill. This text...

The criminal section of the Court de cassation (the highest court of appeal) delivered a much remarked-upon decision on 6 May 2003, in which it stated that the Audiovisual Communication Act of 29 July 1982 applies to offences committed on the Internet against legislation concerning the press. This was the first time the Court had spoken out on the subject of knock-on criminal liability as applied to the Internet. The case involved the broadcasting of defamatory statements on an Internet site. The Court of Appeal in Versailles, applying Article 42 of the Press Act of 29 July 1881, had maintained...

France has just notified Brussels of its draft decree on the conditions for broadcasting events of major importance, in compliance with Article 3a of the "Television Without Frontiers" Directive, which provides that each Member State may draw up a list of events ­ national or otherwise ­ that it considers to be of major importance, and adopt measures to ensure that broadcasters do not exercise their exclusive rights "in such a way as to deprive a substantial proportion of the public in that Member State of the possibility of following such events via live coverage or deferred coverage on free television"....