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French Politicians Ban Twitter From Heated Legislative Debate

by Amar Toor on July 20, 2010 at 03:45 PM

french twitter birdThis week, all French eyes are on the country's Parliament, where lawmakers have just begun discussing a "controversial" new law that would raise the French retirement age from 60 to an outlandish 62. (Sacré bleu!) The proposed legislation, supported by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Labor Minister/Partner-in-Crime Eric Woerth, has come under intense scrutiny from trade unions, members of the Socialist party and members of any party that doesn't believe in progress. Unfortunately for all those joueur-détesteurs, though, they won't be able to get any real-time scoops from the closed-door legislative meetings -- because every French lawmaker has agreed to ban Twitter from the premises.

As Reuters reports, both the governing UMP and opposition Socialist parties have agreed to use neither Twitter nor text messages to break any real-time news during the proceedings. It's unclear why the politicians implemented the ban, although it probably has something to do with Parliament's recent meeting with disgraced soccer coach Raymond Domenech. The meeting was supposed to be top-secret, but a so-called "traitor" in Parliament leaked some of the deets on his Twitter account. We understand that politics can get ugly and French elites don't want to risk fanning the flames of Gallic fury. But you'd think that a country so obsessed with removing veils would be more willing to shed at least a little light on what goes on behind its own political curtains. [From: Reuters]

Tags: france, government, NicolasSarkozy, politics, RaymondDomenech, SocialNetworking, top, twitter, twitterban, web

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