Nicolas Sarkozy, conservative candidate for President of France who surprised the attendees at this week's Le Web conference in Paris, is not the first politician to drop in to a tech event. Wes Clark, the general-turned-Democrat, gave an after-dinner speech at PC Forum in 2002, for instance. But most know to pander to their audience. Sarkozy, a controversial interior minister, has made a personal trademark of public confrontations. At Le Web, he called for regulation of the internet, on the grounds that liberty is bound by responsibility. How French. Not popular with many of the American bloggers present. Sarkozy might as well have delved into the vocabulary he used earlier this year when condemning France's car-burning suburban youths, and called them a racaille, or rabble.

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