The French seem to have an appetite for regulating the Internet, and for going after Google in particular. A new proposed law would force Google to make payments when French media show up in news searches; but Google has responded, in a letter to French ministers, that it "cannot accept" such a solution and would simply remove French media sites from its searches.

The result? "Less information would be available online," writes Google.

Google France posted the whole letter online last night after excerpts of it began appearing in the press. The letter lays out Google's views on the good things that search does for media sites, like bringing four billion additional clicks per month to those properties. The letter also notes that the UK paper The Times opted back in to Google search after realizing it couldn't live without the traffic; 30 to 40 percent of it was coming from search.

The French government and culture agencies seem open to the publishers' proposal, however. Agence France-Presse quotes French Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti as calling the proposed law "a tool that it seems important to me to develop."

She also said she was surprised by the tone of Google's letter: "You don't deal with a democratically-elected government with threats."

A French media association called Google's missive a "complete refusal by the dominant actor on the market ... of all dialogue."

Google already has a licensing deal with Agence France-Presse, the French newswire. That deal was struck in 2007, after AFP filed a lawsuit saying Google's use of snippets violated copyright.