Politicians talk up the Internet at LeWeb 3 – because bloggers and their readers vote?

Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative candidate for the presidency and Minister for the Interior addressed LeWeb this afternoon. While I’m not sure about his politics, his comments about the Internet and the need for France, and any country for that matter, to foster online innovation made sense. He called for easier access, better tools, better education and government support for R&D.

What was important about Sarkozy and other politicians coming the LeWeb today is their understanding of the importance of the blogosphere and the risk to countries which do not innovate.

Back in Australia I am reminded of the debate about who pays for faster broadband and the lack of government support for web 2.0 and related start ups. All Australian Governments ought to be eliminating barriers to online access, they ought to be aggressively funding startup Web 2.0 innovators and they ought to foster a culture of genuine intellectual property development. This is the next natural resource and our Governments, State and federal, seem to engage in all buy lip service.

IP in Web 2.0 and beyond businesses could be our next export and we’re not even having a national public conversation about it. Not seriously. In Australia we need faster, better and cheaper access. We need to foster innovation. We need better tax breaks for this innovation. And, we need politicians who understand the flat earth, open and people driven of the Internet.

Here is Paris we’ve heard from two presidential candidates today who consider the matter so serious that they come and speak to 1,000 bloggers from 37 countries. That says something beyond the fact that there is an election next year. These two had passion and a grasp of what is happening online. They engaged beyond platitudes.

All that said, others were not happy that politicians got time at the conference. Dieter Rappold has some views worth reading as does Tom Morris and Tom Raftery and plenty of others. Do a Google search and you’ll see the blogosphere alight in anger at what many label as the conference being hijacked by the politicians.