The Constitutional Court rejected the bill on the grounds it was incompatible with France’s constitution: the state agency—the eponymous Hadopi—would have cut off pirates’ internet access for up to a year without the need for court ruling. But in the new version, the responsibility for cutting off internet access goes from the agency to the courts. On the third “strike”, users will be reported to a judge who will have the choice of ordering: internet disconnection, a €300,000 fine (£258,000) or a two-year jail sentence. That’s not all: if anyone is found to allow their web connection for others to commit piracy, they risk a €1,500 fine and/or a month-long internet suspension.

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MEPs had been bitterly opposed to the “graduated response” policy and amended a European Telecom reform bill to specifically make any state agency seek a court order before depriving a citizen of their internet, in an open warning to France. so a potential clash at a European level appears to have been avoided.

This is a pet project for Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whose partner Carla Bruni is a noted recording artist, and no one will have been more satisfied to see it passed in the upper house on Wednesday night. But it’s still not quite the end of the road—the bill needs to be definitively adopted by the National Assembly.