Web designer opposes France’s “3 strikes” law, loses job

He's already being called "le premier martyr d'Hadopi." Who is he? He's a 31-year old Frenchman named J�r�me Bourreau-Guggenheim, and he works in the Internet innovation division of French TV broadcaster TF1. After sending a private note to his MP opposing the proposed "three strikes" law currently being debated in France, Bourreau-Guggenheim found himself hauled into his boss' office. He was shown a copy of his e-mail, and he was fired for "strategic differences" with his employer.

The case is all over French newspapers today. Lib�ration reported the story, which began back on February 19th when Bourreau-Guggenheim decided to write his MP. He did so from a private e-mail address and told Fran�oise de Panafieu (a member of the majority UMP party) what he thought of the "Cr�ation et Internet" bill.

The bill is sometimes referred to as "HADOPI," after the French acronym for the new administrative authority that the bill would create; HADOPI would be responsible for overseeing warnings and Internet disconnections for those who repeatedly infringe online copyrights. The idea is so unpopular that 88 percent of the European Parliament this week voted to ban the practice unless overseen by a judge.

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After Bourreau-Guggenheim expressed his opposition to the law, he thought no more about it until he was called into his boss' office and shown... an exact copy of his e-mail to Panafieu. According to his boss, the e-mail had been provided by the Ministry of Culture, where Minister Christine Albanel is the French government's key backer of the Cr�ation et Internet law (and also a UMP member).

But why did the Ministry of Culture have Bourreau-Guggenheim's e-mail? Because Panafieu's office had passed the message from its constituent on to the Ministry, which then passed it to TF1, which also supports the new bill.

Bourreau-Guggenheim could hardly believe it when, on April 16, he was fired from his job for "divergence forte avec la strat�gie" (strong disagreement with the strategy) of TF1.

When contacted by Le Point magazine, Albanel's advisors said that they were "tr�s choqu�s et alarm�s" by what had happened, even blaming TF1 for an overreaction.

"On n'a jamais r�clam� la t�te de ce salari�. La r�action de TF1 est tr�s exag�r�e!" said the unnamed source. "Cette d�cision est vraiment regrettable." (Rough translation: "We never asked for his job. TF1's reaction was way out of proportion! The decision is truly regrettable.")

Apparently, the Albanel people were just passing the e-mail along for informational purposes—though if that were true, one wonders why the identifying information wasn't stripped out of the message. "Truly regrettable" is certainly an understatement here, but it's the same sentiment offered by Panafieu's office, which says it merely passed the e-mail along to the Ministry of Culture because it was an "interesting argument."

No one "meant" for this to happen—but happened it has, and it's another huge black eye for UMP, which couldn't even get the bill passed on its first reading because it was outmaneuvered by the minority Socialists. Cr�ation et Internet comes up for a second vote in the National Assembly next week and looks set to pass, though the European Parliament may have other ideas when it comes to implementation.