Performing his watchdogging task as a blogger, Christophe Grébert has been the thorn in the side of the mayor's office of Puteaux, a rich Parisian suburb, for three years. Today, he is being summoned to court for libel, in the first French case of its kind. The case has merited front page news in Libération, a major French daily. Sticking his neck out in a town "where nobody dares speak out because the mayor's office is capable of the worst reprimands," Grébert's alleged crime is publishing extracts of an article concerning problems that an ex-employee of the town hall had with her former employer, and then adding his own commentary on his blog, MonPuteaux.com. Believing that his blog is simply a tool for freedom of expression, Grébert had previously been banned from entering municipal meetings because of the trouble he was causing the mayor's office, run for 36 years by the same family. Now, a man who for two years endured the jeers of his fellow citizens because of the light the mayor portrayed him in, Grébert has gained the sympathy of the blogosphere through which he is raising money to pay his court costs. Loic Le Meur, European director of SixApart, a blogging software company and host of MonPuteaux, says that blogs aren't outside the law, but they shouldn't be excessively regulated either.

Source: Libération (in French)