Politics, blogging and bluster

We will shortly be leaving Paris and LeWeb3. Did we learn anything new?
Well we learned that the big corporates have now woken up to the opportunities of Web2.0 and social media and are now seeking to muscle in on the scene by claiming to have wonderful new products that will make us shiny happy people?
We have learned that the Americans like to talk down to the Europeans – and you cant really blame them when we set our ambitions to low. We learned that China is getting bigger and that the English language is taking of the world – which is nice for us Brits.
We learned that French politicians will pick a coin out of piece of dogshit with their teeth if it will get them a vote (I paraphrase this quote from Flaubert).
For those of you who didn’t know most of the audience at LeWeb3 are not happy that the last day of the event was hi-jacked by two of France’s leading politicians who are all posturing in the run up to the general election.
What annoyed most people, at what was supposed to be an un-conference, is that François Bayrou, president of the centrist Union for French Democracy and Nicolas Sarközy, Minister of the Interior – spoke only in French.
Everyone elese at the conference had spoken English. In the crush of media Sarkozy barked out his 15 minute speech – a call to arms for all French bloggers and plea of “vote for me” – and f***ed off.
It went down hill there from there on in – although my colleague Simon Collister said the conference had already taken a noise dive before the politicians turned up so at least they made it interesting.
A final word on Loic LeMeur – who has taken a battering for his organisation of LeWeb3 (check out the following technorati seach). At the end of the conference the face of Six Apart in Europe told the delegates (those few who remained) that he apologised for the unexpected appearance of two sniping politicians, but faced with the same opportunity in the future he would do it again.
I think a career in politics beckons - what do you think?