Ségolène Royal More Controversial than Jesus?

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According to studies carried out on Wikipedia, the French Socialist presidential candidate and former wife of current French President François Hollande is one of the most hotly-debated personalities on the on-line encyclopaedia.

Who would have believed it? On Wikipedia, French internautes (a French word referring to “astronauts” exploring the internal dimensions of the world wide web) are more inclined to modify the entry of the President of the Poitou-Charente region Ségolène Royal than more traditionally controversial entries such as UFOs, The Jehovah’s Witnesses or even Jesus Christ!

This is according to the often surprising results of a study that will appear in a book due for publication by online magazine Slate next year. In order to ascertain which entries were the most controversial, the Wikipedia files were classified in order of the number of revisions made to the articles.

In France, the 2007 Socialist Party presidential candidate had ignited quite a bit of passion and debate but even the 911 terrorist attacks (the subject of huge amount of debate and controversy on the Internet) come out as less controversial than Ms Royal.

In other language versions of the online encyclopaedia, the results are varied according to national trends. In the German-language version, for example, conspiracy theory entries are just as controversial as the files on Adolf Hitler or Jesus.

In the English-language version, meanwhile, the results are less surprising, with George W Bush leading the controversy charge, followed by anarchy, the prophet Mohamed, global warming and circumcision.

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