President Sarkozy, that small man with the excellent peripheral - wife Carla Bruni - could be going for the Internet giants in order to claw back some of the revenue he claims that creatives are losing through piracy.

In his traditional new year speech outlining his plans for the next 360 or so days, Sarkozy announced plans to tax overseas search engines, Web portals and ISPs such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Aol) despite the fact that Google doesn't pay tax in la belle, fromage-y France (its european tax is paid in Ireland.) The thought behind it is that the companies should pay tax on the revenue generated by French Internet users when they click on an ad banner or sponsored link.

Despite the fact that his three-strikes law is now on the statute book, my money's on Google and the other behemoths telling Sarkozy to stick it where the Google Street View don't shine. In fact, they're probably developing plans for Google Colonoscopy. Coming to a head of state near you soon. [CNET News]