…or how ‘Le Sénat français a décidé de violer la législation europeénne’.
Sarkozy’s authoritarianism seems to be behind this. Yet it puzzles me how violating EU legislation can be so easily accepted by the Senate:
« 1° La suspension de l’accès au service pour une durée de trois mois à un an assortie de l’impossibilité, pour l’abonné, de souscrire pendant la même période un autre contrat portant sur l’accès à un service de communication au public en ligne auprès de tout opérateur ;
It seems to me that this is in direct violation of Amendment 138 of 2002/21/EC — you’d think they hadn’t read it:
(ga) applying the principle that no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end-users without a prior ruling of the judicial authorities, notably in accordance with Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on freedom of expression and information, save when public security is threatened, in which case the ruling may be subsequent.
emphasis mine.
It’ll be interesting to see whether they actually do something with this, or whether this ‘illegal’ law will be used only as a deterrent. If they do, I’d be so happy to see someone take the French Government, their ISP and any other third party involved in this to the ECJ and win.