Eric Scherer at AFP newsnet has an interesting roundup of the French media’s reaction to the head of Google News, Josh Cohen as he asks what role will Google play in the news ecosystem?.

He’s got this nifty video of the twitter coverage as well as some very juicy quotes and debate about the impact of Google

From Emmanuel Parody, publisher of CBS Interactive in France:

Clearly, because Google is now controlling trading routes, it’s in a position of fixing prices. This is the problem

To Pierre Conte, president of PubliPrint, advertising branch of Le Figaro newspaper group

“We see you now as a danger for the life of our companies”, said Conte. “The CPM has collapsed, and the growth of the Internet has been hijacked by search. We are no longer able to pay professional journalists to do their work. “

Plenty of food for thought but Scherer picks a nice tweet from Jay Rosen to end the piece.

I am certain that Eric Schmidt will get a thorough de-briefing on Cohen’s Paris trip. As Jay Rosen commented in a recent tweet, “Google people tell me: we know we have to support the news ecosystem. But they don’t want to prop up messed up organizations.”

via Newspaper bailout: what role will Google play in the news ecosystem? – AFP-MediaWatch.