he Government of Canada and French on the Internet. Over the next few years,
I'll investigate this subject further.

= What do you think of the debate about copyright on the Web?

We need software that can charge the user a fee when necessary. Governments
should make available as many documents and services as possible, especially in
French.
What practical suggestions do you have for the growth of a multilingual Web?

There are several suggestions in my report (see chapter V: Observations and
Recommendations).

= What is your best experience with the Internet?

Discovering all the uses of a cable modem. It's very fast and showed me the
power of this communication device. The Internet as a universal encyclopaedia is
also essential for me.

= And your worst experience?

The fact it was so slow, but the problem has now been solved.

JEAN-PIERRE CLOUTIER (Montreal)

#Editor of Chroniques de Cyberie, a weekly report of Internet news

Chroniques de Cyberie was launched in November 1994 as a weekly newsletter sent
by email. Since April 1995, it has been available on the Web. Both versions are
currently available: the e-mail version (5,000 subscribers) and the Web version.

In The New York Times, Bruno Giussani wrote: "Jean-Pierre Cloutier (...) is one
of the leading figures of the French-speaking Internet community. Cloutier
writes one of the most intelligent, passionate and insightful electronic
newsletters available on the Internet (...) an original mix of relevant Internet
news, clear political analysis and no-nonsense personal opinions, (...) a
publication that gave readers the feeling that they were living 'week after week
in the intimacy of a planetary revolution'."

*Interview of June 8, 1998 (original interview in French)

= Could you tell us about your professional work?

There are two different things. First I was a translator (after working in
communications). I got connected to the Internet at the request of my small
translation company's customers because it made it easier to receive the work to
translate and then send the result back to them. Quite quickly, I began to get a
broader range of customers, including some in the US.

Then I made a switch. I stopped translating and became a columnist. At first I
was doing it part-time, but it soon became my main activity. For me it was a
return to journalism, but in a very different way. In the beginning, Chroniques
de Cyberie dealt mainly with news (