France Searches for its Own Google

Proust had his madeleine, but today's Frenchman needs a national search engine to aid his memory. Or so says President Chirac. Pshaw, replies Julie Meyer

by Julie Meyer

French President Jacques Chirac loves bold and dramatic rhetoric, but it sometimes appears to be oratory for oratory's sake. When he announced last April, "We must take the offensive and muster a massive effort," adding that Europe was in danger of losing the battle for "the power of tomorrow," one could be forgiven for thinking he was talking about defending against some terrifying new security threat. In fact, what Chirac was referring to -- during a somewhat self-congratulatory speech he gave alongside then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder -- was a rather bizarre plan to try to beat Google (GOOG) at its own game.

Chirac and Schröder were making public their plan to cooperate on a new technological program that they saw as having vital strategic importance. The plan was nothing if not audacious: a scheme to create from scratch a sort of "Eurogoogle." But rather than giving it some frivolous, fun, slightly subversive name, the Franco-German technological Maginot Line against the invasion of U.S. search-engine culture will be known as Quaero, a suitably serious, intellectual, and elevated name deriving from the Latin word meaning "I seek."

Whether or not Quaero turns out to be a serious competitor to Google and other privately funded search engines, Chirac clearly means business. Indeed, when he announced the launch of the new initiative, he compared it in glowing terms to another major pan-European undertaking that involves engines: passenger jets. Government funds, Chirac said, would be used to create Quaero, "in the image of the magnificent success of Airbus."

WINGED VICTORY.

In other speeches since that fateful April day, Chirac has continued to spout Euro-rhetoric with such pronouncements as:
• "We must take up the global challenge of the American giants Yahoo (YHOO) and Google...." (Yahoo, of course, is another fun name, doubtless too much fun for this sedate and deadly serious European undertaking.)
• "Culture is not merchandise and can not be left to blind market forces,"
• and "We must staunchly defend the world's cultural diversity against the looming threat of uniformity."

But the real clue to the possible motivation behind Eurogoogle is another remark Chirac let slip during one of his other comments on Quaero. He said, "Our power is at stake." Already, the French Government -- arguably the administration in Europe with the most centralized power -- has created a special entity, the Agency for Industrial Innovation (AII), based in Paris, to oversee the project. The AII has received an initial endowment of 1.7 billion euros ($2 billion), which will reportedly be spent on Quaero and a variety of other centrally directed high-tech initiatives.

SEARCH FOR ANSWERS.

Is the comparison with Airbus fair and reasonable? After all, many of us have flown in Airbus planes; they are reliable, safe, and comfortable. But airplane manufacturing is the kind of industry that lends itself to a pan-European effort. Creating a new airplane maker required a massive amount of capital. When all is said and done, Airbus has become a decent and successful European firm -- and it doesn't come packaged with all the emotional, defensive, and indeed aggressive, rhetoric associated with Quaero.

So what exactly is Chirac up to with his fervent plans to create a serious European contender to the big U.S. search engines?

Quaero apparently promises to feature some innovations that U.S. search engines don't, such as the ability to use pictures and sounds as query terms. It may happen -- and it's very likely Google and other major U.S. search engines are already working on this important new approach -- yet experience shows there is many a slip between the cup of technological innovation and the lip of successful achievement, especially when governments are behind the projects.

CULTURE BILL.