One way Greece hopes to extricate itself from its economic crisis? Tax its news websites. In pension reform law due to be voted upon by parliament next Thursday, the government has proposed raising a 21.5 percent levy on news portals’ online advertising income. The money would go in to an…

By Kim Wilsher: Since its first edition came out on 19 December 1944, printed on a single sheet, Le Monde has been universally accepted as France’s paper of record. Today, the evening daily has turned a new page in its history when a trio of tycoons was given the go-ahead…

Imagine a world in which a mobile phone carrier and a bathroom pump maker owned a newspaper. Well, keep dreaming… France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) is teaming with SFA PAR to bid €80 million ($98.8 million) for 65 percent of troubled Le Monde, SFA owner Claude Perdriel tells WSJ.

It looks like Publicis Groupe’s three-year digital acquisition binge may be slowing down. It’s not for a lack of desire on the part of the man who kicked off the digital M&A frenzy with the $1.6 billion purchase of Digitas in December 2006. As Publicis CEO Maurice Levy tells the…

Ad agency holding companies are continuing to look to Brazil as a hot spot to plant their flag. Publicis Groupe, along with WPP Group, has made focusing on the BRIC countries a major part of its acquisitions plans has taken a 5 percent stake in São Paulo-based full service agency…

Women’s lifestyle vertical publisher Glam Media has launched its site in France, following last week’s Paris Fashion Week - despite two warnings from a French company that it owns the “Glam” trademark in the country. The French launch is the latest international expansion for Glam, which has launched in Japan,…

As the traditional ad agency structure struggles to reorient services to emerging markets and new media, Publicis Groupe’s digital revenues are at least heading in the right direction, albeit slowly. The Paris-based ad holding company saw digital revs rise 7.1 percent in Q4. Digital dollars now account for 22.4 percent…

Another week, and another newspaper opts for a paid-content model: French daily Le Figaro has now announced price tiers for its delayed, previously announced offering, which will go live on Monday… But, instead of hoisting up a paywall around all its news conent, Le Fig is going for a freemium…

The dominoes keeping falling - now it’s the turn of leading French publications Le Figaro and L’Express, which are both gearing up to restrict content to paying subscribers, according to a report from Le Monde. Most revealing - in the case of L’Express, the paywall is being delayed not by…

Could operators like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) be taxed every time a Frenchman clicks a web ad? A report presented to the French government suggests exactly that. The Zelnik Report recommends a levy on online advertising companies, as well as ISPs, to raise between €35 million ($50 million) and €50 million…

When we heard of the latest product launch from France’s vertical publisher and social network business Glam One—owner of the “Glam” trademark in France—we wondered whether it would be a problem for US ad network Glam Media, which is planning to launch in France next year. Glam Media told us:…

Many in the media world are still struggling through the slashed budgets and changed business models, but at least for French advertising group Publicis the advertising downturn is over. In its Q309 earnings release (pdf) on Tuesday, the company declared that the ad market reached its lowest point during June,…

What will French VOD site Dailymotion use its recent €17 million ($25.5 million; £15.53 million) VC funding round for? To fund an ambitious plan to break the American market, increase audience across Europe and get its content on IPTV and mobile platforms. CEO Cédric Tournay told me in an interview:…

Before Google’s book-scanning project has even gone to court in the US, the company is already defending itself in a French court against claims the project rides roughshod over copyright. Editions du Seuil SAS on Thursday asked a Paris court for €15 million ($22 million) in compensation and an injunction…

Havas is finally ready to join the other leading ad holding companies in offering real-time ad bidding to its clients, Adweek reports. The French ad firm is working with start-up ad exhange provider DataXu, which raised $6 million in a first round in the spring. The news is timed for…

First Germany, now France. Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has written to a US court urging it to stop a $125 million settlement between Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and US book publishers, warning that Google will have unfair control over European works and a “monopoly (on) digitising European orphan works without permission” (via…

Fast growing digital music sales and the ongoing popularity of online multiplayer video games helped Vivendi (EPA: VIV) to a recession-beating 15 percent year-on-year revenue growth in the first half of 2009. —*Activision* Blizzard: The games division continued to power on - revenues up 300 percent from last year to…

European online advertising network and marketing firm AdLink Group, part of Germany’s ISP firm United Internet, has finally been sold off its display ad unit, AdLink Media, about 18 months after its hired Morgan Staley to do it: Hi-Media, the increasingly acquisitive French online media group, has bought the unit.…

The search for a new CEO for also-ran online video site Dailymotion has ended, as Cédric Tournay (pictured) has agreed to take the reins of the Paris-based site, the company said in an e-mailed announcement. Tournay is the former CEO of European health portal Doctissimo.