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The European Convention on Human Rights has little to do with the European Union other than that the EU obliges its member-states to be members in good standing of the Council of Europe (and ultimately, when the EU has its own legal personality, it will also be a member).

The Council of Europe has Churchillian origins and predates the early origins of European Union by a couple of years; it has always had a larger membership than the EU, and it is mostly focused on encouraging the establishment of human, civil and democratic rights in the whole of Europe. The European Court of Human Rights is administered by the CofE.

A good chunk of the European Convention on Human Rights comes from French law (reworked and neutrally codified (for the various legal systems in place among the CofE member-states) by a very British lawyer named Maxwell-Fyfe). Although it is a useful framework, the Convention is genuinely less extensive and forceful than French law. For instance, you might want to consider the few lines of the current constitution of the French Republic or the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen on which those lines were based. (The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was also partially inspired by both).

Moreover, France, as a Council of Europe member-state is obliged to incorporate CofE human, civil and democratic rights law into its own national system in cases where the former is considered to be stronger.

The vast majority of appeals to the European Court of Human Rights from persons in France have had to do with long delays in the justice system, on the principle of justice delayed is justice denied.

Hence, if the French courts regarded Scientology as a religion they would be bound, by EU law , to allow it.

No.

Quoting http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/english/8ab.asp :

The Government of the Republic, in accordance with the Constitutional statute of June 3rd 1958, has proposed,

The French people have adopted,

The President of the Republic hereby promulgates the Constitutional statute worded as follows :

[...]

Article 1

France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs. It shall be organised on a decentralised basis.

The people of France merely guarantee equaity before the law without regard to one's religion except where there is a conflict with France's secularity.

As a Canadian with an interest in human rights, you will probably recognize some of the wording in the second paragraph

[source http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm ]

Article 9 - Freedom of thought, conscience and religion

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

You can thank Maxwell-Fyfe, 1950ish, rather than Trudeau, 1980ish.

The balance of rights is an enormously important part of modern legal systems; pragmatic codifiers wisely choose to make the necessity of balance explicit, and realize that the balance may shift from case to case and over the course of many years. Ultimately the question is to what e

Canada's constitutional Acts of Parliament[s], regulations, letters, and other items of constitutional weight written in modern times are meant to be pragmatic and useful, and mostly are. The "poetic declarations" pieces of the Constitution are pretty damn ugly and anti-pragmatic (the Act of Settlement, 1701, for instance, which still applies in Canada per Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217 and in the appeals of O'Donohue v Canada, 2003 CanLII 41404 (ON S.C.)). Even the Magna Carta is not especially inspiring, unless you happen to be an English Baron.

Where forceful declarations in Articles of a Constitution rather than in the Preamble (which is generally not enforceable), it's hard to beat Article I and III of the (current) Constitution of the Fifth French Republic:

Article 1

France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs. It shall be organised on a decentralised basis.

Statutes shall promote equal access by women and men to elective offices and posts as well as to professional and social positions.

Article 3

National sovereignty shall vest in the people, who shall exercise it through their representatives and by means of referendum.

No section of the people nor any individual may arrogate to itself, or to himself, the exercise thereof.

Suffrage may be direct or indirect as provided for by the Constitution. It shall always be universal, equal and secret.

All French citizens of either sex who have reached their majority and are in possession of their civil and political rights may vote as provided for by statute.

( from http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/english/8ab.asp )

The primacy of clauses by ordering in that Constitution is very clear, and there is no lingering non obstante compromise.

Canada, of course, was spared bloody civil war in the 19th and 20th centuries, and while it too suffered large numbers of wartime deaths in the 1910s and 1930s to 1940s, which absolutely motivated the patriation and legal independence movement in Canada and particularly in the Liberal Party, it did not motivate a complete rejection of the existing Westminister-like system, or revolutionary poetry.

I don't like Sarkozy at all, but I don't think he really is a big user of the 49.3 article:

http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/connaissance/stat-49-3.pdf

(now, passing the European treaty despite the rejection of the referendum, that was a total negation of democracy...)

41 hours of session, but over many days!

Agreed, 33h from the start of the week.

Full retranscription here (obviously in French)

Start and stop of individual sessions are given at top and bottom of each session.

Translated excerpt of French assembly voting rules (emphasis is mine):

3. - Quorum

According to a principle reiterated by its Republican Regulations "the Assembly is always in force to deliberate and settle its agenda". The votes are valid regardless of the number of members present unless a group chairman calls for quorum before the opening of the ballot.

The quorum refers to the presence inside the National Assembly by an absolute majority of deputies (based on the number of seats actually filled).

When a vote may not take place due to lack of quorum, the session is adjourned and the vote postponed for at least an hour. The vote is consequently valid whatever the number of deputies present.

Also, from the linked article (dammit, accentuation removed, won't they ever learn UTF-8 ?) :

Apres 41 heures et 40 minutes d'une discussion passionnee sur le texte, il ne restait qu'une poignee de courageux deputes autour de 22H45 jeudi soir lorsque l'Assemblee Nationale a decide [...] de passer immediatement au vote de la loi Creation et Internet, qui n'etait pas attendu avant la semaine prochaine.

The vote was called 41 hours and 40 minutes after the start of the session, at 10:45 pm, and the vote wasn't expected that day; no wonder only a few deputies were remaining.

The French public sector (much bigger in proportion than the US one) did contribute significantly to opensource software (for example, the first linux thread library and Ocaml has both been written by a French public sector researcher, Xavier Leroy, and you'll find thousands of other cases, like Frama-C.).

Also, French government did issue several contracts (outside of Gendarmerie) to support opensource software, and did pay development of significant applications. My perception is that the French government is supportive to open-source.

At last, French private sector is increasingly contributing to opensource projects (for example Penjili at EADS or Airbus).

Unfortunately, several French government sites are using proprieray (non-standard) technologies (like Flash at Assemblée Nationale - the lower Parlement Chamber).

The French non-profit APRIL association is quite powerful at lobbying for free software.

In the press-release there is no mention of still bargaining with Microsoft. Clearly, free (libre) Software is what the decision is about. (see http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/presse/divisionp resse/m01.asp#TopOfPage)

Article 5 (Freedom of expression).
(1) Everyone has the right freely to express and to disseminate his opinion by speech, writing and pictures and freely to inform himself from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by radio and motion pictures are guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.
(2) These rights are limited by the provisions of the general laws, the provisions of law for the protection of youth and by the right to inviolability of personal honor.
(3) Art and science, research and teaching are free. Freedom of teaching does not absolve from loyalty to the constitution.

4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.

11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.

Article 13 [Expression, Censorship]
(1) Everyone has the right, within the limits of the law, to freely express his opinion by word of mouth and in writing, print, or pictorial representation.
(2) The Press may be neither subjected to censorship nor restricted by the licensing system. Administrative postal distribution vetoes do not apply to inland publication.

Article 14 [Freedom of Belief]
(1) Everyone is guaranteed complete freedom of conscience and creed.
(2) The enjoyment of civic and political rights is independent of religious belief. Nevertheless duties incumbent on nationals may not be prejudiced by religious beliefs.
(3) No one can be forced to observe a ritual act or to participate in an ecclesiastical ceremony in so far as he is not subordinate to another who is by law invested with such authority.

The law that was voted today (link is to report where the law itself is in the second half) no longer has the strong interoperability provisions that in particular protected free software-based implementation of interoperability. It would be much more relevant to comment on the infamous Vivendi Universal amendment that is included in the voted text. The corresponding provisions create criminal sanctions (3 years of jail and 300000 euros = 375000 US$) for software writers, distributers and importers for software that is "manifestly destinated" to the unauthorised sharing of copyrighted works. The exclusion of general collaborative work or file exchange software from these sanctions has been deleted in the final text. They also make possible for right holders to ask for judicial injonctions to software publishers and service providers to implement DRMs in software that is "manifestly used" even for at non-commercial scale for sharing works without authorisation. I don't know if Apple will keep screaming about the law, but there is much more to cry about for software freedom, intellectual freedoms and free culture.

Instead of commenting on stuff based on press reports written by clueless journalists and possibly driven by biased comments from the industry, you should probably read the law, the amendments and the debates:

http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/dossiers/0312 06.asp

The law is essentially a patch on the IP code, which you will find there:

http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/

Of course, this needs a working knowledge of French.

Some information in English is available here:
http://eucd.info/index.php?English-readers

This is a massively complex topic, with lots of politicking, negociating and backhanded tricks. Sorry, but you cannot possibly make a meaningful comment on the issue unless you have followed it a bit.

To me, most of the comments here sound as clueless as if some French guy had commented that the Democrats had rushed Bush to go to war in Iraq.

Text of the law, the debates, etc:
http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/dossiers/0312 06.asp

But, yes, this law allows competitors to reverse-engineer DRMs for compatibility purposes.

I'll get excited when I see the collective realization that just the technology we currently have enables the defeat of many entrenched, obsolete social constructs.

It's the withering away of the state; Lenin forsaw it but mistook it. It turns marxism and capitalism both ass-over-teakettle.

Why not use these techniques to defeat fearful democratic and republican governments, as well? They are equally egregious, just the authoritarian regimes are less duplicitous and a damn sight rougher.

This seems incorrect to me. On your link, I see :

Contre son avis, les députés ont adopté dans la nuit deux amendements identiques - un UMP, un PS - qui légalisent les échanges de fichiers sur internet via le système "peer to peer".

which can be translated as : Against [the governement] will, the representatives have adopted two identical amendments - one from the UMP, and one from the PS - which are legalizing peer to peer file sharing on the internet.

Now, let us check the facts more carefully : you will find the direct links to the amendments we are speaking of here and here.
I do not find the name of any representative of the UDF in these texts. If you want to check by yourself, here is the list of the representatives.

This seems incorrect to me. On your link, I see :

Contre son avis, les députés ont adopté dans la nuit deux amendements identiques - un UMP, un PS - qui légalisent les échanges de fichiers sur internet via le système "peer to peer".

which can be translated as : Against [the governement] will, the representatives have adopted two identical amendments - one from the UMP, and one from the PS - which are legalizing peer to peer file sharing on the internet.

Now, let us check the facts more carefully : you will find the direct links to the amendments we are speaking of here and here.
I do not find the name of any representative of the UDF in these texts. If you want to check by yourself, here is the list of the representatives.

This seems incorrect to me. On your link, I see :

Contre son avis, les députés ont adopté dans la nuit deux amendements identiques - un UMP, un PS - qui légalisent les échanges de fichiers sur internet via le système "peer to peer".

which can be translated as : Against [the governement] will, the representatives have adopted two identical amendments - one from the UMP, and one from the PS - which are legalizing peer to peer file sharing on the internet.

Now, let us check the facts more carefully : you will find the direct links to the amendments we are speaking of here and here.
I do not find the name of any representative of the UDF in these texts. If you want to check by yourself, here is the list of the representatives.

In any event, it can't be adopted as law until both assemblies stop ammending it and shuttling it back to the other. A vote conforme.

Which leads me to my point, these amendments were voted not because they are a Good Thing (tm) (which they are!), but because the UDF (center-right) saw this as a way to strenghten its role as the 'Real Opposition' and gain voters in the 'internet generation' demographics, which is not favorably biased towards them.

Not really. On this page, you will find the trancript of the debates. You will be able to read:

M. Jean Dionis du Séjour - Le groupe UDF est opposé à ces amendements.

Which can be translated as : the UDF group is opposed to these amendments.

A constitution says where the laws come from. It does not decide, but rather describes. Otherwise the constitution would not be well-founded.

The French one (see article 34) says that rights come from statue. The American says the rights belong to the people. Our tradition says the rights come from natural law (God), not statue.

In France, it is more simple -- rights come from statute, only. The French state doesn't get them from anywhere, so the state is supreme.

That's far more autocratic.

My point about States Rights is that since the end of the Civil War, the federal government has increasingly intruded on matters that were previously decided by states. Hence, state law matters less and less -- you can't see the effects of Lousiana law as clearly as you could before.

here is an example, from Quebec: a slip of the pen by Quebec lawmakers and your only hope is relief from the feds. If that happened in California, you'd argue that your rights were being taken away, by the state -- no limited for some good purpose, but removed. If the court agrees you're home free.

So Civil Code countries don't have the concept of divine-enshrined or individual liberty. In the US, people consider it their God-given right to associate as they wish, speak their mind and so on. If the government chose to take it away (constitutional amendment), many would argue that that was illegal according to natural law. This would be "extra-judicial", but entirely in keeping with the spirit of Anlgo American law. You can't make that argument if you believe in Civil Law -- if the government takes it away, then that's the law.

So people from civil code countries have a more compliant mentality. When the Germans took away the right for a merchant to cut his prices, people accepted it. Here, people would talk about freedom of contract (which the state may limit, with good reason -- but the right still exists). The mere fact that you can argue about whether the law is legal or not means that Americans are a lot less compliant.

There is no conspiracy theory here, merely an attempt to explain the attitudes that inform the French actions.

And finally, China

• http://lantre.org/vospapiers/
• http://www.assemblee -nationale.fr/2/dossiers/communic/2com.htm

I read the press trying to get a few hard facts on the said court ruling. All I got is from imprecise sources such as newspapers, so take it with a grain of salt.

• The ruling is a summary injunction (référé), which means that it has been issued by a single judge.
• The matter has not yet been appealed to a court of appeal. We should probably wait until such things get appealed to the supreme court (cour de cassation) before we conclude that French jurisprudence has been defined with respect to sites abroad selling forbidden material. Unfortunately, with the current overload of the supreme court, it should take several years.
• As with the Georgia Tech case, the lawsuit was not brought by the government but by private nonprofit associations, LICRA (International League against Racism and Antisemitism) and UEJF (Union of Jewish Students of France). Therefore it is wrong to conclude anything from this case about the position of either the president, the cabinet, the national assembly or the senate. They apparently ask for reparations in accordance with article 48.2 of the (revised) law on the Press of 1981 which allows a nonprofit association whose statutory goals include fighting racism to ask for reparations even though the association is no direct victim.
• Apparently, the motive of the lawsuit is article 24 of the same law, which prohibits inciting discrimination, hatred or violence against a person or a group of persons because of their origin or their belonging or non-belonging to an ethnic group, a nation or a determined religion (punishable by one year of prison and/or a 300,000 FRF fine, not precluding the civil damages). Means of such incitation to hatred include drawings or emblems (article 23).

• Whether or not a nazi emblem promotes racial hatred;
• Whether or not a French court can order an US company to comply to its rulings (apparently, the matter will have to be brought before an US court); of course, Yahoo France must comply.

Furthermore, as far as I know, are exempt from the ban prints of such items for education or scholarly research. I do not know where this comes from legally. Surely indeed, some public libraries, including the National Library of France have printouts of Mein Kampf available for readers!

I therefore think the Slashdot community should wait and see further progress in the case; jumping to conclusions is clearly overreacting.

The text of the bill itself is available here. I will attempt to translate it, but my ignorance of legal jargon (English, and, to some extent, French also) will probably show: this is hardly better than Babelfish.

Keep in mind that this is not really a bill. It is only a suggestion of a bill, made by a small parliamentary group (the RDSE group, which isn't even a political party as far as I know). Also note that the Senate is the less powerful of the two house of parliament in France, and normally the more conservative one (curiously enough, the Senate's web site runs on Apache, whereas that of the other house of the French Parliament, the Assemblée Nationale, runs on Netscape Entreprise).

As Senator Laffite points out, this draft is concomitant with another bill proposed by French Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou which would make digital signatures legally binding, and both bills might be merged into one.

Anyway, here's my translation:

Article 1 Communication between state and local administrations, as well as between the local administrations shall be performed by electronic means. The conditions of the switch from the current means (circulars, letters, summons, etc.) and generalized electronic mail shall be specified by a decree.

Article 2 So as to insure a good transparency and a more rapid access to information for business, public calls to bids and their ancillary documents will use electronic communication.

Responses will likewise be sent by electronic means.

During a transitional period, a paper communication may be added to the electronic communication. A decree shall specify the duration of this transitional period and the cost of the paper communication made on demand.

Article 3 The state and local administration and the administrative services, except as stated under article 4, may only use software that is free of rights and whose source code is available.

A decree shall specify the means of transition from the current situation.

Article 4 Certain specific software programs may be used and obtained by administrations and services mentioned in article 3 after authorization by a competent service. A decree shall specify the geographical location of this service and the conditions for obtaining this authorization.

Article 5 So as to hasten the application of this bill, a service of electronic information shall be created in each prefecture for public services and local administrations, and consular assemblies for the companies involved.