Ex French prime minister and now MEP, Michel Rocard, is, according to Libération, leading the opposition to software patents. This is despite being in the same political group in the parliament as Arlene McCarthy, who is leading the drive for software patents. Rocard says "A civilization should be preserved where the place of the world outside the market and of the human intellect is respected... any software which describes or facilitates the circulation of the products of the mind [les produits de l'esprit] (nb text processing, for example) should not be patentable." Extract from the article:
"One does not find a computer on the Parisian desk of Michel Rocard. He
admits it freely: he is not "one of the generation which has an easy
facility with the computer". However, as president of the Committee for
Culture in the European Parliament, he has had to plunge himself, with
an "evil madness", into software patentability, "words which even a year
ago were unknown to me". Today, if he speaks about it in such an
animated way, it is because hiding behind the technical aspects there is
a real issue about civilization. For the ex prime minister, the
introduction of patents on software in Europe would be "very serious".
It would call into question the freedom of movement of human knowledge. "
As someone who is not "one of the generation which has an easy facility with the computer" he's showing a grasp of the issues here.