Bloggers worldwide have united behind La Petite Anglaise
Using the pseudonym La Petite Anglaise, she has attracted an impressive international following for her musings on love, work and single motherhood.
Her blog postings, which are read by up to 3,000 people a day, do not reveal her own name, nor that of her French former boyfriend who is the father of her three-year-old daughter, and have never identified her employers. Yet the bi-lingual secretary was sacked for gross misconduct amid claims that she brought her accountancy company Dixon Wilson into disrepute. And even though Catherine admits to updating her blog during quiet office hours, tell me one person who has never used the web or phone for personal reasons.
Catherine is very much a modern woman with a natural flair for striking a chord about her daily trials and tribulations as a young and attractive single English woman living in the French capital with her daughter known as Tadpole, her Bridget Jones’ style diary has a romantic Parisian backdrop, and we know what a blockbuster that became.
Meanwhile, the collective fury of bloggers has united to offer their unstinting support to their heroine, whose latest posting has attracted 366 worldwide comments. And what a great scoop for Colin Randall who first reported this after corresponding with Catherine via her blog and realising its full potential.
Dixon Wilson could stand to lose more than just a spirited and creative member of staff if the tribunal decide their actions were unfair and unjust.
Whatever the result, Catherine will end up a winner.
Update: What are the French saying about le blog celebre? Read Croydonian to find out.
Ellee, I’ve started assembling a piece on the French reaction, per your request, but it does not seem to be a big story on the other side of the channel.
Croydonian, I think it would be excellent to follow this through from the French perspective and as you read all the leading French titles, it seemed an obvious line for you to post about, as long as it interests you. I think the French are much more prolific bloggers and perhaps not so shockable as the Brits with their stiff upper lip. I would have thought they might have loosened up a bit living in gay Paris. The fact is that this is a test case in France, so there is also an interesting legal line regarding bloggers.
Now with a link that actually goes to my post…
Croydonia, Thanks. Isn’t your ex-wife French? I wonder is she has read it? Is she into blogging?
Ellee – she is, but I doubt she would have paid much attention to the story, being rather less of a web head than I am.
As a side bar, the Academie Francaise’s ‘official’ word for blog is bloc-notes. Judging from what I’ve seen, that term is not exactly a runaway success.