décembre 13, 2006
LeWeb3: The Sarkozy and Le Meur Backlash Continues [en]
As Parisist reported yesterday, leWeb3 attendees are pissed, disgusted, disappointed, bloody angry... you name it.
The blogosphere is still buzzing about Tuesday's surprising and controversial change of program... the appearance of presidential candidates François Bayrou and (organizer Loïc Le Meur's choice) Nicolas Sarkozy at leWeb3 (pictured). It seems that attendees spent 300-500 euros for an international Web conference that turned into a French political rally, and according to their blogs, they're not happy.
Making Day 1 of the event look like a love-in, Day 2's buzz is primarily backlash.
Phrases include hijacking and betrayal, political propaganda, farce or tragedy, an election campaign, leWeb3 was hacked, and "Loïc, you sold us out." (Check out more blogger opinions in our previous post.)
For the BBC, Robin Hamman writes:
Most of the people I've spoken to just want the previously advertised conference back. In fact, it's all people are talking about, at least those sitting around me.Mr Sarkozy railed against racist hate speech on the internet and said that freedom of speech can be taken too far and said, "I'm not afraid of the word 'internet regulation'."
We don't like hate speech either, but call Parisist old school: we are afraid of the words "internet regulation." You never know where those words could lead...
But the backlash is not only on English and foreign language blogs. Blogum apologizes for "our Le Meur" [fr] and sums up the responses. Our friends at PointBlog got photos [fr] of Sarkozy and Le Meur together on stage (above), and one of their commenters linked to a 19 minute video of Sarkozy's leWeb3 speech.
We've chosen to post it here, not as an endorsement, political or otherwise, but so you can see what people are blogging about.
With all of the uprising of anger and disappointment stemming from the appearance, we're surprised that the audience is so quiet during the speech. (Though we realize that middle fingers don't make too much noise.)
And with the exception of this foreshadowing post from Monday, it's also quiet on the leWeb3 front. As of this afternoon, leWeb3 organizers have yet to specifically respond to the blogstorm of attendee disapproval.
What do you think of the controversy?
Photo from PointBlog.com. Video via DailyMotion.
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This is so astroturf, hijacking a blogging conference to make it look like your candidate is hip with the bloggers. Come on. We know what real netroots power looks like...
[1] Posted by: Bridget | décembre 13, 2006 11:31 PM
I'm curious why there is such an incredible fuss about this. Politicians, not least in this campaign, are always speaking in every forum imaginable to get their face and message out. And it isn't like Sarkozy is some fringe politician trying to get a name for himself, he is very likely the next president of France.
French Election 2007
[2] Posted by: Boz | décembre 14, 2006 2:17 AM
Le Meur is known here in France for months as an ambitious man who always shows his face in the media, who is building up his adress book with deputees, senators, ministers, industry bosses and media tycoons. The real problem is that he is only interested by the marketing and business side of blogs... The blog phenomenon made him famous, richer, and wealthier. He plays the "independent" reporter but is clearly engaged on Sarkozy's side, doing his promotion for months. (Maybe Le Meur wants to step on politics?)
And now, even foreign bloggers are beginning to understand his self-centered ego... if you read his french blog, my god it's so superficial, a real caricature, for instance the day he quoted some chinese pretentious businessman and concluding some bullshit like France must be a communist country to not understand how it's fantastic to work 24 hour a day... And his writing style sucks too, it's like some junior-high student telling what he did during his last holidays...
He makes me think of Jean-Marie Messier, playing the Wonder Kid but nerving everybody in the end.
There is a french parody about Le Meur, a blog called "Loïc Jemeur" ("Loïc I die") which is excellent, so close to the real one, but much more funny!
[3] Posted by: Mickjagger | décembre 14, 2006 5:27 AM
Le Web 3 : l’histoire devient sérieuse/ Tim
14déc06
Un des bloggeurs de TechCrunch UK a vivement critiqué la conférence du Web 3 (comme beaucoup d’étrangers) et notamment Mr Le Meur, ce qui lui a coûté cher.
Le journaliste, Sam Sethi, a dû quitter la rédaction malgré que Loïc l’ait traité de "trou du cul" dans les commentaires de son billet. Pourquoi ?
Parce que TechCrunch FR était partenaire de la conférence, et que Mike Arrington, CEO, n’était "pas d’accord avec [son] article et pensait que [ses] actions étaient vindicatives envers Loïc".
L’info est relayée par The Guardian, on ne rigole plus.
Décidemment, on n’a pas fini d’entendre parler de cette affaire.
http://dynamite.web-2-0.fr/archives/le-web-3-lhistoire-devient-serieuse/
[4] Posted by: Hugues | décembre 14, 2006 12:56 PM
Sethi leaves TechCrunch (published on THE GUARDIAN)
By Jemima Kiss / Internet 07:08pm
Mike Arrington, publisher of the technology blog TechCrunch, has "terminated the relationship" with his UK editor after a dispute over coverage of the Le Web 3 conference.
Like most of the bloggers that took the trouble to get to Paris for Le Web 3, Sam Sethi has been critical of the corporate nature of the event his year, not to mention the wobbly wireless network that was never going to be a hit with a legion of bloggers - many of whom who need to be able to play World of Warcraft at any given time.
Space was also made in the schedule for three politicians: Niklas Sarkozy, Shimon Peres and Francois Bayrou - seemingly out of sync with the audience. Given that other blogs have posted pictures of bloggers giving the finger to speakers on the stage, Sethi's original comments on Monday seem very mild.
But something in there - along with the fact that TechCrunch France is a sponsor of the event - appears to have riled the organiser Loic Le Meur. He posted a comment calling Sethi an arsehole, which isn't very nice.
Something then happened which involved MIke Arrington telling Sethi that his post was vindictive. I imagine Sethi didn't agree with that, given that his account of the event was pretty much in line with everyone else that went, and he appears to have told Arrington where to stick it.
Before he left, he posted a farewell that was up for a few hours before Arrington snatched it down again. e-consultancy snatched a copy, bless 'em.
"Following yesterday's post about Le Web and Loic's retort. It seems Mike Arrington has disagreed with my post and opinion believing my actions to be vindictive towards Loic. What was said between Mike and I will remain confidential but suffice to say I can no longer remain with TechCrunch UK & Ireland.
It is a very sad after all the work that has gone into TechCrunch UK and Ireland. I wish all of the UK and Irish entrepreneurs well. I will be personally blogging back at www.vecosys.com and looking for something new to keep me busy. Bye."
No response from Sethi as yet and Mike Butcher couldn't tell me more. Super summary of commentary on Le Web on Tom Morris.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2006/12/sethi_leaves_techcrunch.html
[5] Posted by: Hugues | décembre 14, 2006 1:01 PM
Sarko Invaders the game:
http://segolene007.free.fr
[6] Posted by: segolene007 | décembre 25, 2006 7:05 AM