France wants Euro cyber war on US culture

He wants Brits, German and Spanish governments to join in on a multi-million €uro bid to put the whole of European literature on-line.

Chirac seems to be weighing in behind French National Library president Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who plans to put that country's literature online to counter what is considered a US bias. US search engine outfit Google wants to put 15 million books and documents online.

However, Chirac, realising that a Euro version of the scheme will cost a lot, has called the UK, Spain and Germany to join in its programme.

Some of the words that Chirac and Jeanneney seem to be using, suggest that Germany and the UK might have a bit of a problem backing this cunning plan.

Jeanneney and the French book lobby fear what they call "Anglo-Saxon" dominance of the web. By that, they mean the US. But the Anglo-Saxons culture is a Euro hybrid with its roots in the UK, Scandinavia and Germany. Chirac's move seems to be to appeal to the European Anglo-Saxons, on the gorunds they are not American.

Jeanneney told Le Monde that if the "Anglo-Saxons" had their way the French revolution would have meant The Scarlet Pimpernel triumphing over Ninety-three, valiant British aristocrats triumphant over bloody Jacobins and the guillotine concealing the "wonders of the Convention".

It seems that France is starting to regret winning the revolution of 1776 for the Anglo-Saxons in the UK's colonies in the New World according to this story. µ