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As soon as the posters appeared throughout France, AGRIF (the French general association against racism and for respect of the French Christian identity) took urgent legal action to obtain a ban on the poster for the film Larry Flynt, on the grounds that it infringed the respect of religious beliefs. The background of the disputed poster showed a woman's body, from the knees to the stomach, clad in a bikini, and superposed on it was the almost stylised image of a man in a crucified position, with the American flag draped round his hips. The judges, taking the classical line of caselaw, while recognising...

On 7 February, the French Senator, Mr Pierre Laffitte, presented his report entitled La France et la société de l'information ("France and the Information Society") on behalf of the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choice.

The French Senate regularly publishes working documents. Among these publications, there is a series of documents which compares the legislation of different States in different subject areas. Recently, a document was published comparing the legislation of different States regarding regulatory authorities in the media sector and of programme standards. The States covered are Germany, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands and the UK. A separate section refers briefly to those provisions in the `Television without Frontiers' Directive that relate to the protection of minors.

To say that competition between television channels is lively would be an understatement. Audience-hunting sometimes makes them go too far, broadcasting programmes which shock a large section of the public. The French Media Authority ( Conseil supérieur de l'Audiovisuel - CSA) has already taken the initiative of requiring that violent programmes be marked ( see IRIS 1997-1: 14). The Bill to amend the Act of 30 September 1986, already adopted on its first reading by the Senate (it was due to be adopted definitively by the Parliament in March 1997) strengthens the CSA's powers of recommendation....

The Regional Court of Paris delivered an interesting decision on 31 May 1996 on the use of Médiamétrie surveys in advertising. A radio station (NRJ) had published in a number of newspapers a series of advertisements including comparative tables of audience figures for three competitive stations; one of the advertisements included a picture of a ball rolling towards skittles bearing the marks of the other stations, to knock them down. The judge found the advertisements defamatory and outside the legal framework of comparative advertising, disallowed benefit of the provisions of Article L 121-8 of...