Memo From France: A Candidate Abroad, or an Innocent Abroad?
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The Socialist nominee for president found a dangerous place for a diplomatic debutante.
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PARIS, Sept. 20 -- The French National Assembly on Thursday approved a controversial proposal authorizing the use of DNA testing to determine whether foreigners applying for visas are actually related to family members they seek to join in France.
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(InfoWorld) - French government members and their advisors have been told not to use BlackBerry smartphones, for national security reasons. The ban on BlackBerry devices is just one of the IT challenges facing new National Assembly members as they take their seats following Sunday's elections. The smartphones, developed by Canadian company Research in Motion, send and receive e-mail through just a handful of servers in the United Kingdom and in North America -- a reality brought home when a failed software upgrade to the North American servers in April abruptly halted service to BlackBerry users there. This concentration of data poses a threat to national security, according to Alain Juillet, senior economic intelligence advisor to the French Prime Minister, because of the risk of data interception. There's reason to believe that Juillet knows what he's talking about when it comes to industrial or political espionage: after a career in retail, Juillet made headlines in October 2002 when he was appointed Director of Intelligence for the French General Directorate of External Security, the country's foreign security service, moving to the role of senior economic intelligence advisor in December 2003. In his most recent post, he has long maintained that French government and businesses should be more wary of how they use technology to exchange information. The French Secretary-General for National Defense first circulated advice to government officials two years ago, warning them not to use BlackBerry devices. That same advice has now been reissued, Juillet's office said Wednesday. The republication of the advice coincides with the arrival of newly elected officials and their advisors, unfamiliar with the French administration's rules and traditions on using IT, in the National Assembly, following Sunday's national elections. Many of the new arrivals will face another IT challenge as they move into their offices at the National Assembly: learning to use an unfamiliar suite of software on their computer. Last year, the outgoing National Assembly voted to install open source software on their desktop machines. That software is already installed on the machines of the assembly's existing members: new members get their software update after being allocated an office. Government officials were not immediately available to identify which open source software is being used.
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Software on the Seine, anyone? Backup in Budapest? VTL from Vienna? And why not. Europeans have far more experience when it comes to dealing with data regulatory issues than we do.
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BBC 09/26/2006 By [Printer Friendly Version] President Jacques Chirac has ordered an inquiry into the leak of a French secret service memo claiming that Osama Bin Laden had died.Comment
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Under Saddam Hussein, the government saw Iraq's postal service as a great way to spy on its citizens. Receipt of an overseas letter was often accompanied by a summons from authorities asking about foreign contacts. Mail was frequently censored or went missing.
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Anybody who might question France's determination to portray itself as a loyal friend of the Arab Middle East need only take a look at the government's agenda.
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Comment is free: Martin Kettle: The French leader has the classic Gaullist vision: Europe, with our former prime minister in the chair, shaping the world
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I didn't get a 'harrumph' out of that guy ... EU ambassadors have agreed on a draft statement regarding "cooperation to combat terrorist use of the internet". Justice and Interior ministers are expected to endorse the document in June.â¦
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The abstruse French writer is popping up everywhere these days- in movies, TV, even newspapers. Is he trying to tell us something?
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By Matt Moore  FRANKFURT, Germany - Some European countries are proposing outlawing the use of fake information to open e-mail accounts or set up Web sites, a move intended to help terrorism investigations but which could face resistance on a privacy-conscious continent.
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The sight of the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, jogging -- often wearing his favorite NYPD T-shirt -- has fired up a tempest in a Reebok in France and Britain this summer. Sarkozy's running is an un-French, right-wing conspiracy, suggests Paris' left-wing newspaper LibÃÂ©ration. In response,...
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1. Allegation: Kimberly Quinn claimed in an e-mail that David Blunkett âfast-trackedâ a permanent work visa for her Filipina nanny, Leoncia Casalme.
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An al-Qaeda tape threatens France -- so, what else you got, Osama?
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Exemplified by the Guardian's 'pen pal' campaign, Europeans are seeking a voice in the presidential election.
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Some laud moves with the two nations. Others are suspicious.
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ABECHE, Chad  - The scandal over a French group suspected of trying to smuggle African children to Europe from Chad may harm the image of foreign aid workers seeking to help refugees fleeing violence, U.N. officials said on Monday.