VIVE LA FRANCE! - Protesters storm France's 'Big Brother' house

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Protesters storm France's 'Big Brother' house

By Julian Coman in Paris

THE house in which the French version of Big Brother is being filmed was stormed yesterday by up to 50 protesters who claimed that the programme turned viewers into "idiots".

The mob kicked down barriers and fought with about 20 guards as they struggled to stop work on the reality game show. One person was slightly injured. The programme, called Loft Story, is the most watched show in French television history but has resulted in widespread criticism from politicians, human rights activists and broadcasting regulators.

It has been accused of "transcending all known concepts of public order and good manners" by professors at Paris II university. Last night was the first time protesters had managed to break into the loft style appartment in which the 11 young contestants have been living for a fortnight.

The 50 protesters, brandished placards reading "Trash TV, Criminal TV", "Free the chickens at least" and "With trash TV the people turn into idiots, the guinea pigs squeal, and the mafia grows richer". They had initially held a peaceful demonstration outside a wall separating the street from the studio, but started to attack the barriers at about 6pm.

They were responding to a call by the audiovisual watchdog Zalea TV for "civil society to mobilise itself against oppressive television". Another "ultimate assault" on the studio last weekend by 70 human rights activists was beaten back with tear gas by riot police.

The programme is a version of the highly successful format that drew up to 6 million viewers when it was broadcast in Britain last summer. The group, who are competing for the prize of a £300,000 house, are surrounded by 26 cameras and 50 microphones.

Last Thursday 7.7 million viewers - 38 per cent of the French television market - tuned in as one of the contestants was voted out by viewers. French intellectuals and TV regulators have called it a new low in the "dumbing down" of television programmes and warned that the 24-hour scrutiny could cause psychological harm to the contestants.

France's broadcasting standards watchdog, acting "in the name of basic human dignity", forced M6, the programme's maker, to agree to give the loft's inhabitants two hours a day of privacy. The anti-racist group MRAP is taking the producers to court for allegedly discriminatory remarks about one of the contestants during the programme.

A spokesman for the show said before last night's action: "French officialdom likes to make a fuss about nothing - seven million people watched the show on Friday night. They can't all be wrong, can they?"

-- Anonymous, May 19, 2001

Answers

They couldn't all be wrong, but they could all be idiots?

-- Anonymous, May 20, 2001

Why can't they all be wrong? Look how many voted for Gore, and we ended up with Bush....

-- Anonymous, May 20, 2001

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