Minister of National Education during the mandate of François Hollande, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem has an idea, and it is audacious: limit monthly data use to 3 GB per week.
If Najat Vallaud-Belkacem wanted to start a controversy, she couldn’t have gone about it better. The former socialist minister (National Education, Women’s Rights and Sports), now president of France Terre d’Asile and director of the NGO One, signs an article published in Le Figaro this Monday March 18, 2024, in which she calls for “ ration the Internet “.
The astonishing proposal to limit it to 3 GB per week and per person
Because, among other things, “ all the big topics “, such as harassment, inequalities, discrimination or ecology, ” are linked to the Internet “, and she sees it as an aggravating factor in many problems, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem asks herself a question: ” do we need that much internet? »
The former minister believes that it is impossible to make the platforms and all those who have the power to impose the right limits listen to reason. “ The constraint must come from elsewhere: therefore from the law, therefore from the State », she adds.
The one who is also regional councilor for Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes therefore believes in Internet rationing, “ for example by granting a limited number of gigabytes to be used daily “. The elected official suggests the possibility of a limit of 3 GB per week and per French person, justifying her idea by the fact that by being restricted, the roughest Internet users will spend less time and hours ” to post hateful comments or create fakes ”, or on pornographic sites “ watch videos in ultra HD “.
The French already consume too much data to consider going back
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem pushes her idea quite far, even evoking the more or less realistic side of the measure, questioning in particular the applicability to companies, whether there would be exceptions, etc. However, if the crazy race to produce data raises questions and is not without consequences for the ecology, ARCEP, the telecoms regulator, has already made a glaring observation.
The French (and the rest of the world) consume more and more data. Last year, consumption per active 4G customer amounted to 15.9 GB/month in France, or 1.3 GB more compared to the previous year, according to the figures we were able to collect with ARCEP. With the profusion – and constant improvement – of technologies, it seems difficult to force the French to consume less than 12 or 13 GB each month. Not to mention the outcry among telecom operators, part of whose business model is based on this overbidding of data.
At the beginning of her missive, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem explains “ not be the last to use social networks », spending hours on his phone at the end of the evening. A clever, subtle way perhaps of showing readers that by pleading guilty, you reveal your faults and end up attracting public sympathy. Except that on paper, the idea is no less bad.
Sources: Le Figaro, ARCEPClubic
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