French MPs come to order, then play chess and gamble
Date November 25, 2012
Debate: French MPs using tablets in the National Assembly. Photo: AFP
FRENCH members of parliament have been spotted playing online poker and chess and buying wine and clothes on tablet computers in the National Assembly.
The discovery has prompted calls for the new Socialist speaker to scramble wireless signals in the chamber for the sake of democracy.
In the past, French MPs would discreetly stuff a newspaper inside a serious political document during tedious debates.
Now they brazenly get out their iPads and similar tablets.
Photographers in the press balcony have caught several MPs, reportedly including ministers, taking online poker bets, reading adult cartoons, perusing online clothes catalogues and even placing an order for fine wines.
Others have been caught using the devices to flout a photography ban in the chamber.
The Socialist deputy for the Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, Matthieu Hanotin, admitted to having been ''nabbed'' playing online chess during a late-night debate.
Such distractions are apparently tolerated by the assembly's new speaker, Claude Bartolone, who has declined to use the scrambling device installed by one of his conservative predecessors, Jean-Louis Debre.
Mr Debre, now president of France's constitutional council, was appalled.
''When debating a bill, an MP must be alone with his conscience and his ideas,'' he said.
He was ''all for mobiles and computers anywhere else in parliament''.
In Britain, Parliament resolved last year that ''hand-held devices [not laptops] may be used in the chamber, provided that they are silent, and used in a way that does not impair decorum''.
Tablet screens have become a familiar sight in the House of Commons.
One argument for lifting a previous restriction on them was that ''members might be more willing to spend time in the chamber listening to debates'' if allowed to multitask with hand-held devices.
