
Olivier Ricou.
10 years of confrontation between French Internet users and their successive governments. In the proceedings of
7th European Conference on e-Government. Den Haag, The Netherlands, June 2007
Abstract: This paper is a testimony on the relations between the Internet users and their governments in France
during the last decade. It shows the complexity of communication between two worlds that are strangers to each
other. Since most of the confrontation occurred over law proposals, it analyses their impact on Internet users and
focuses on two examples. These example show the failure of Internet as a political medium. French politicians do
not seem to want an active participation of the citizens in decisionmaking processes. In order to end this paper
on an optimistic note, the last section enumerates the achievements of egovernment which contributed
preparing for a better democracy by increasing transparency, accountability, and education. This might push
citizens to ask for more.
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