{"id":382629,"date":"2025-12-31T13:18:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T13:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/382629\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T13:18:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T13:18:07","slug":"france-fears-era-of-trumpism-as-public-broadcaster-comes-under-fire-from-right-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/382629\/","title":{"rendered":"France fears \u2018era of Trumpism\u2019 as public broadcaster comes under fire from right | France"},"content":{"rendered":"

The French public broadcaster is at the centre of a political row as a parliamentary inquiry<\/a> examines the \u201cneutrality, workings and financing\u201d of state TV and radio, while the media are expected to play a significant role ahead of the 2027 presidential election.<\/p>\n

The rightwing UDR party, an ally of Marine Le Pen<\/a>\u2019s far-right the National Rally (RN), set up the inquiry amid far-right claims that public TV and radio has a bias against them. Le Pen, whose party is expected to reach the final round of the presidential race, has said \u201cthere is a clear problem with neutrality in the public service broadcasting\u201d and that she would like to privatise it.<\/p>\n

The French parliamentary inquiry, which will run until March, comes amid tension over public broadcasting in Europe \u2013 with Trump suing the BBC<\/a> for up to $10bn over cuts to a 6 January speech, and unions at the Italian public broadcaster<\/a> saying Giorgia Meloni\u2019s rightwing government had too much control.<\/p>\n

The backdrop to the inquiry is the rising dominance in France of the private media empire<\/a> owned by the Catholic conservative industrialist Vincent Bollor\u00e9<\/a>, which critics say is giving a platform to reactionary voices and boosting the rise of the far right. Bollor\u00e9\u2019s CNews is the most watched news channel on TV and is highly critical of the state broadcaster.<\/p>\n

The parliamentary commission was set up after two journalists were secretly filmed having a coffee with Socialist party officials. The video clip was released in September by a rightwing magazine and shown on Bollor\u00e9\u2019s channels amid allegations that the journalists were colluding with the left to damage the right.<\/p>\n

The journalists \u2013 Patrick Cohen, who broadcasts on politics on public radio and TV, and Thomas Legrand, a former radio journalist, now a political columnist for the daily Lib\u00e9ration \u2013 said having coffee with politicians was part of their job and the video was misleadingly edited. They have filed a legal complaint for invasion of privacy.<\/p>\n

Questioned at the inquiry, Cohen said the video clip was referenced in 853 news sequences on CNews over a two-week period, and was \u201camplified by a propaganda operation without limits, aimed at denigrating and destroying the public service that I represent\u201d.<\/p>\n

Legrand told the inquiry: \u201cFrance has entered an era of Trumpism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The parliament hearings have been heated. The Socialist MP Ayda Hadizadeh, sitting on the inquiry panel, said it was turning into a \u201ctribunal\u201d by politicians who wanted \u201cto kill public broadcasting\u201d. The far-right RN MP Anne Sicard said her party was \u201ctreated like the enemy\u201d by the state broadcaster.<\/p>\n

J\u00e9r\u00e9mie Patrier-Leitus, of the centre-right Horizons party, who is heading the proceedings, said the inquiry was not \u201cagainst\u201d state TV and radio.<\/p>\n

The public broadcaster France T\u00e9l\u00e9visions, which includes four national TV channels and 24 regional channels, is a key financier of films, drama and documentaries and is the top French media outlet. Radio France has several national and local stations and dominates podcasting.<\/p>\n

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has been critical of the public broadcaster in the past and scrapped the TV licence fee<\/a>, while a long-term funding model remains to be defined. In December, Macron began to distance himself from Bollor\u00e9\u2019s CNews. The \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace published a social media video criticising the channel for what it called \u201cdisinformation\u201d over Macron\u2019s support for media certification.<\/p>\n

Alexis L\u00e9vrier, a media historian at the University of Reims, said: \u201cIn Europe<\/a>, public broadcasting is being attacked in a way that seeks to weaken it as a counterpower \u2026 The specificity in France is that we now have a political-media empire [owned by Bollor\u00e9] of unprecedented strength \u2026 this group is now at the heart of the media space and it has an agenda. In that agenda, the public broadcaster is a target.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bollor\u00e9, in a senate hearing in 2022, denied political or ideological interventionism.<\/p>\n

Ad\u00e8le Van Reeth, the head of state radio station France Inter, told the parliamentary inquiry: \u201cThe preservation of French public broadcasting is a sign of a democracy in good health.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The French public broadcaster is at the centre of a political row as a parliamentary inquiry examines the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-382629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}