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Comment by BoppreH | Hacker News Reader

Though the story is interesting, I'm flagging this article for extreme bias while trying to sound like a news outlet. The author took a law that makes a little sense and tries to find hidden agendas, self interests and contradictions in official reports with little or no evidence.

I'm sorry if this is not supposed to be a news article (even if the law is not new), but I really don't like explanatory articles throwing around words like "lunacy", "obviously", "inconceivable", "ludicrous", "ridiculous", "ironically" (where I couldn't find any irony), and so many others.

And this was the last drop: "The obvious answer is that regulators like to impose rules, if only to make themselves feel important."

(if you didn't read the article yet, it didn't end with that phrase, thankfully)

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> Though the story is interesting, I'm flagging this article for extreme bias while trying to sound like a news outlet

What are you talking about? What about it is trying to "sound like a news outlet?" It says right in the side of the page, "Matthew Fraser - Reflections on life and literature in Paris." It's clearly a blog.

> The author took a law that makes a little sense and tries to find hidden agendas, self interests and contradictions in official reports with little or no evidence.

What could possibly make sense about prohibiting people from mentioning Facebook and Twitter on television? The CSA spokesperson actually asked, "Why give preference to Facebook, which is worth billions of dollars, when there are many other social networks that are struggling for recognition?" Because Facebook beat out those networks struggling for recognition, that's why. It's not anyone else's problem that Facebook beat them.

I find the author's nationalist explanation to be plausible. This is the same government that insisting on inventing its own term for email that was more "distinctly French."

> This is the same government that insisting on inventing its own term for email that was more "distinctly French."

Are you talking about Québec? They did invent "courriel", if Wikipedia is right.

Disclaimer: I'm French.

Now I think it is a mistake to mix the two aspect of the topic:

On one side, it is forbidden to do covert advertisement in France, be it for a French trademark or anything else. The guys on TV can't have a laptop with a well-known fruit on it's very visible back, as they can't wear a T-shirt with "Louis Vuitton" on it. Sometime it make thing a bit harder for journalists, because so many people have transformed themselves in flesh-ads. This is just a choice of the French. They prefer having less brands in their sight, and I happen to share this taste with my countrymen.

There is the other part of the topic, the "war" against English words in the supposed defence of the French language. This war can be sometime fought also by nationalists, but it is not nationalist by itself. (Or trying to maintain one's cultural asset is nationalist? Is it nationalist for Bushmen to try to keep their culture alive?)

On this part, I agree with the goal, which is to keep a French language as a strong cultural vector, but I don't agree with the means (keeping English words away).

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