French reporter faces legal action over car scoop

PARIS, July 17 (Reuters) - A French magistrate placed a journalist under formal investigation on Thursday over the unauthorised publication of pictures of a new model of car, drawing protests from press freedom campaigners.

Prosecutors raided the offices of specialist magazine Auto Plus on Tuesday, seizing computers and documents and arresting journalist Bruno Thomas, the author of the scoop last year that prompted carmaker Renault (RENA.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) to take legal action.

Arrests of journalists and raids on their offices are very rare in France, which has laws protecting press freedom.

"This formal investigation and the aggressive attitude of police and magistrates who kept our colleague in detention for 48 hours are a grave challenge to freedom of information," said the press section of labour union Force Ouvriere.

The Auto Plus controversy comes at a time when press independence in France is the subject of increasing debate after recent broadcast reforms giving President Nicolas Sarkozy the power to appoint the head of the public television network.

Sarkozy's close personal friendships with several media barons who are also major industrialists has raised concerns among journalists of undue influence from politics and big business over media and of self-censorship from some editors.

In the Auto Plus case, Renault says it lodged a formal complaint because it wanted to protect its intellectual property and smoke out any company source that may have leaked or sold details of a new model not due to be launched for three years.

Thomas was placed under formal investigation, a step that is short of formal charges but can lead to trial, for obtaining and revealing industrial secrets and complicity in a corrupt act, among other offences.

His case has highlighted a perennial conflict between a scoop-hungry automobile press ready to pay for unauthorised advance pictures and carmakers eager to control images of their new models.

A draft law, due to be examined in the French Senate after the summer recess, is intended to tighten safeguards on the confidentiality of press sources, although exceptions remain in cases of exceptional public interest. (Reporting by Thierry Leveque; Editing by Charles Dick)