PARIS (Reuters) - A raid by French prosecutors on the offices of a specialist magazine that published unauthorized pictures of one of carmaker Renault's new models has refueled simmering controversy over press freedom in France.

"You have to think what kind of press we want," Laurent Chiapello, editor of Auto Plus told Reuters on Wednesday, a day after prosecutors raided the magazine's offices, seized computers and documents and arrested a journalist.

The incident is the latest flare-up in a perennial conflict between a scoop-hungry automobile press ready to pay for unauthorized advance pictures and carmakers eager to control images of their new models.

But it also comes at a time when press independence is the subject of increasing debate after recent broadcast reforms that give President Nicolas Sarkozy the power to name directly the head of France's public television network.

Authorities have been conducting an investigation against Auto Plus since last August after Renault complained that the magazine had published pictures and details of a new model not due to be launched for another three years.

On Tuesday, officials raided the magazine's offices, sparking fierce complaints that the confidentiality of reporters' sources had been undermined.

"By gaining access to the computers of our journalists, they gain access to all our sources and that poses a real problem to our way of working independently and not tied to the carmakers," Chiapello said.

Two of the country's biggest journalists' unions, SNJ and the press section of Force Ouvriere have also complained.

via reuters