The bill now heads to the French National Assembly for final approval.

But, as the BBC reported this morning:

If enacted, the law will put France on a collision course with Brussels, which rejected a call to impose such “three strikes” laws across Europe in April 2008.

Throwing people offline, it said, conflicted with “civil liberties and human rights”.

Second, late last month Eric Besson, a Sarkozy cabinet minister in charge of the “development of the digital economy,” presented a new 81-page Digital Plan 2012 for France, which apparently was one of Sarkozy’s presidential campaign promises.

If enacted, this would be one of the most ambitious technological policy plans in Western Europe in recent years. (And while I don’t mean to harp on Estonia, the Baltic powerhouse has had a few of these items, like digital ID cards and health records, for some time now.)

Among other things, the report says that “high-speed Internet,” like water and electricity , is “essential.” And as such, 2 million to 4 million French citizens are without it — and the government needs to work such that by 2010, every single citizen has 512 kbps that costs no more than 35 euros per month. Further, every French citizen should have access to high-speed mobile Internet as well, which only covers 85 percent of the citizenry as of today.

Other proposals include:

- allowing the old analog television signals to be opened up to wireless and mobile Internet access.

- an electronic national identity card for each citizen starting in 2009 (Estonia already has this).

- a doubling of cyber-crime law enforcement agents by 2012

- the promotion of telecommuting in the public sector

- a digital medical file for each citizen by 2012

- a Green IT and Cleantech prize

- a migration away from the American-dominated ICANN toward a more multilateral and international organization to run the infrastructure of the Internet.

As of yet, this remains but a proposal — but an interesting and ambitious one — and if Sarkozy is serious about keeping his campaign promise, especially while France holds the the Presidency of the Council of the European Union until the end of the year, it could be a boon to France.

Thanks to the Globe and Mail for a fuller, and more accurate, transcript than the one provided by CTV via the Washington Post — which, however, included the first few seconds in its transcript.

Around 0:04:

RADIO HOST: Hi, this is (French name), I am with president Sarkozy, on the line for Gov. Palin.

The actual name used was “Franc Ouvrier” — which means Frank Worker — as in generic French worker.

Anyway, back to the Globe and Mail’s transcript:

Around 1:00:

A: I follow your campaigns closely with my special American adviser Johnny Hallyday, you know?

Johnny Hallyday, as anyone who’s ever taken a French class or traveled to France ought to know, is France’s biggest aging rock star, who sings in French, but in a “yeah-yeah” (or, in French, yé-yé), America circa 1950s-influenced style. According to the BBC, Hallyday supported Sarkozy in the 2007 French presidential election.

Around 2:05:

A: Exactly, we could try go hunting by helicopter like you did. I never did that. Like we say in French, on pourrait tuer des bebe phoques, aussi.

“Le phoque” is the French word for seal, and comedically, it sounds a lot like the English word “fuck.”

So the sentence in French means: “We could go kill baby seals, too.”

Around 2:50:

That’s the thing that I said to my great friend, the prime minister of Canada Stef Carse.

As the governor of a state that borders Canada, you’d think that Palin would know that the prime minister of Canada is actually Stephen Harper. Also, Stef Carse is a famous Quebecois country singer.

Around 3:10:

A: I was wondering because you are so next to him, one of my good friends, the prime minister of Quebec, Mr. Richard Z. Sirois, have you met him recently? Did he come to one of your rallies?

Richard Z. Sirois is one of the co-hosts of Audette and Trudel’s radio show, “Les Cerveaux de l’info,” on CKOI-FM in Montreal.

Also, while to an American ear the “prime minister of Quebec” sounds obviously false, the Masked Avengers’ Wikipedia page notes:

Although the term they used was in fact “Prime Minister of Quebec,” this is merely an atypical usage and not an inherently incorrect or deliberately misleading one. While Canadian English has a usage convention of reserving the title “Prime Minister” for the Prime Minister of Canada and using “Premier” for the equivalent position in a province or territory, in their actual meanings the terms are strictly interchangeable. Furthermore, Canadian French does not have separate words for the two positions, using premier ministre for both — accordingly, when speaking English, Canadian francophones will often refer to the prime minister of a province.

Around 4:05:

A: Yes, in French it’s called de rouge a levre sur un cochon, or if you prefer in English, Joe the Plumber … it’s his life, Joe the Plumber.

“Rouge à sur un cochon” means “lipstick on a pig.”

Around 5:02:

A: Gov. Palin, I love the documentary they made on your life. You know Hustler’s Nailin’ Paylin?

This, of course, is a reference to the recent porn film “Nailin’ Paylin.”

The pranksters then let Gov. Palin in on the joke and she promptly hung up on them.

The Masked Avengers have their own official YouTube channel, but don’t have some of their other famous pranks, including this call with the real President Sarkozy. These guys have also pulled off pranks against Bill Gates, Britney Spears and former French President Jacques Chirac.

I wasn’t able to find links to online audio for those calls but would love to hear them. Anyone else able to locate them? Merci d’avance!