[NYTimes.com] Plan to Fight Illegal Downloads Faces Opposition

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BERLIN — The governing party of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, scrambling to save a national law that would cut off Internet service to those who make repeated illegal downloads, is threatening to block a European Union telecommunications bill that would undermine the legal foundation of the French plan.

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Representatives of Mr. Sarkozy have spent the past week lobbying Brussels to eliminate the clause, which is part of legislation that has been two years in the making.

“What the conservatives are doing now is holding the entire European telecoms package hostage because of the French,” said Raphaël Delarue, a legislative assistant to Guy Bono, the French member of the European Parliament who proposed the ban on administrative sanctions for Internet piracy last year.