The plot to ban X in France

Clara Chappaz is the minister delegate for Artificial Intelligence and the digital economy in the government of Emmanuel Macron. At the weekend she appeared on a television discussion entitled ‘Trump-Musk: Are we ready?’

Chappaz, 35, is very much a Macronist, an entrepreneur who did her MBA at Harvard Business School before launching a successful start-up.

She expressed her growing concern about the direction certain social media platforms were headed, and the consequences for millions of French people who use them. ‘We have to make sure that wrong opinions are taken off the platforms,’ she declared.

The programme’s moderator interrupted and wondered what constituted a ‘wrong opinion’. A look of embarrassment swept the face of Chappaz. She had, of course, meant to say ‘wrong information’.

Chappaz’s faux pas occurred just days after Macron had warned France’s ambassadors about Elon Musk, declaring in an address: ‘Ten years ago, who could have imagined it if we had been told that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new international reactionary movement.