France Brings in Tout Le Web Before the G8 Summit
In an event ahead of the G8 summit this week, France’s power brokers are hosting a new event–called e-G8 and with the motto, “Internet: Accelerating Growth”–that starts tomorrow in Paris.
Set to be held at the Tuileries Garden in the capital, the conference has been pushed and will be opened by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, who is also president of the G8.
Recently, Sarkozy has advocated the idea of a “civilized Internet”–a decidedly tin-eared concept, since the e-G8 event is chock full of often noisy and always disruption-loving U.S. Web stars.
That includes Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, the social networking site’s COO Sheryl Sandberg, eBay CEO John Donahoe, Groupon CEO and co-founder Andrew Mason, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Sean Parker.
In fact, Mason and Zuckerberg have the two big keynote spots for the two-day event, putting the American point of view on the Internet’s future on front and center.
In other words: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!
