chirac, anti american internet

Fear of an American Internet
Markus Dettmer and Marcel Rosenbach

France is hoping to protect Europe from the growing influence of US Internet companies like Google by creating a rival state-backed search engine. ...

Even if it's not clear when exactly French President Jacques Chirac blew his stack, he certainly decided at some point that enough is enough. But it wasn't the prospect of cutting European Union farm aid that got him riled up, nor was he railing against rogue states and threatening them with France's ageing nuclear arsenal. No, the target of Chirac's ire this time was much more nefarious: American dominance of the Internet. ..."There is the threat that tomorrow, what is not available online will be invisible to the world." ...