Tax strike threat to get internet

RESIDENTS in a tiny Limousin village are threatening to stop paying their taxes until they get better – or even any – internet access.

Some parts of the village of Bussy in Haute-Vienne cannot even get a mobile phone signal and their landlines cannot get ADSL internet.

They told Le Populaire newspaper: “We are second-class citizens, forgotten by everyone. On the other hand, when it comes to taxes they remember us well enough!”

The 30 or so residents in the hamlet near Sainte-Anne-Saint-Priest have been calling for improvements for years and especially after France Télécom gave up, saying it could not do anything. Now the residents have told the newspaper they have had enough and said if pleas for help did not work then they could try a tax strike.

Many isolated parts of Limousin have already been given WiMax internet access – like a large-scale Wifi transmitter – after a programme called Dorsal was set up in 2003. But although Dorsal says in its advertising that it provides cover for 99% of the region, boss Yan Pamboutzoglou said Bussy was an area where they could do nothing: “We have both technical and financial limits.”

WiMax offers Wifi internet access over a restricted zone, but the last available option was satellite internet which is more expensive and not as flexible. He said they had been able to install individual satellite dishes in 900 Limousin homes but the financing for that had run out.