French publishing giant Gallimard “and two other French publishers plan to sue Google for scanning books without prior permission,” according to a report by Barbara Casassus for The Bookseller — a report, by the way, that doesn’t bother to say who those other two publishers are. “The move was announced at the Paris Book Fair by Gallimard chief executive Antoine Gallimard.”

The move seems inspired, at least in part, by the recent victory of another giant French publisher, La Martinière/Seuil, in its suit against Google before a French court. (See the earlier MobyLives report.) But in his Book Fair announcement Gallimardsaid ongoing discussions with Google “led us to hope for progress on this issue, but nothing has happened.”

According to the Bookseller report,

In 2006, Gallimard was the first French publisher to demand that Google withdraw its titles from the US firm’s database. After a pause of six months, Google resumed scanning Gallimard titles and has continued ever since: “We have asked Google for a complete list of our titles it has scanned so far, but have had no reply,” [Gallimard attorney legal director Brice] Amor said.