Paris - The lower house of the French Parliament, the National Assembly, approved Monday the second version of a bill that would cut off internet access to people who repeatedly download copyrighted content from the web. By a vote of 285 to 225, lawmakers sent the controversial bill on to the Senate. If it is approved there, it will be returned to the National Assembly to be voted into law.
However, if it is made law, it will once again be brought before the Constitutional Council, France's highest constitutional authority, which rejected the first version of the law in June.
In its judgment, the Council had declared internet use a fundamental human right that could not be cut off by any authority but a court of law.
The first version of the law had given that power to a government watchdog agency. In the new version a judge is empowered to impose the cutoff after two warnings to the offender have gone unheeded.
The rejection of the law was a blow to President Nicolas Sarkozy and then culture minister Christine Albanel, both of whom had lobbied hard to get it passed and had much of France's traditionally left-leaning artistic community behind them.
Its annulment was one reason Sarkozy replaced Albanel with Frederic Mitterand as culture minister.
