President Nicolas Sarkozy’s colleagues have agreed to uphold a 1992 decree which stipulates that commercial enterprises should not be promoted on news programs.

Broadcasting anchors from now on are forbidden to refer to the popular social networking site and the microblogging phenomenon, unless it is pivotal and relevant to a news item.

In preventing French news broadcasters from mentioning Facebook and Twitter it means that the radio and television stations will not be able to urge their listeners or viewers to ‘follow us on Twitter’, for example – something that is becoming increasingly visible on other countries’ news channels across Europe and beyond.