On Monday 24 February, Bruno Le Maire, the French Minister of the Economy and Finance, and Cédric O, the Minister of State for the Digital Sector, announced that they were setting up of a team to bring together representatives of the main French authorities responsible for regulating digital platforms.
A press release states that the team will be responsible for “feeding into the European Commission's proposals on the accountability of platforms, with regard both to tackling hate content and protecting consumers”.
The announcement came at the end of a working seminar on digital platforms organised by the two ministers. Around a hundred experts from the European institutions and Member States gathered in Paris for the occasion.
According to Le Maire, the EU “cannot simply act as a market”. In a press release, O stated that “at European level, we need to provide ourselves with the means to respond to the challenges facing us: making a technological impact and updating our regulatory framework”.
A few days earlier, on 19 February, the European Commission presented its proposals on artificial intelligence and data, and made a particular commitment to investigating “the possibility of introducing ex ante rules” for regulating platforms (see EUROPE 12429/5). (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki, intern)