France’s far-right threatens to privatise public media

IN BRIEF: 

• The National Rally has said it wants to privatise the country’s national public media, France TV and Radio France.
• President Emmanuel Macron triggered an election earlier this month, following a rise in far-right support during the EU elections.
• Macron’s party has been looking at merging both France TV and Radio France into one company, while the broadcasters’ funding is also up for debate.

IN FULL:

The far-right National Rally has pledged to privatise public television and radio in France if it wins a majority in the country’s snap parliamentary election.

The party’s president, Jordan Bardella, told France 3 that his ambition was to privatise the networks to save about 3 billion euros, he estimated. He said the sale would be gradual and “not take 24 hours.”

“The ambition that we put forward during the presidential election remains on the agenda: that of eventually privatising public broadcasting, in order to make savings, with, of course, a set of specifications,” he said.

Read more: Merger put forward for French public media

In another interview with France 2, the party’s vice president Sebastien Chénu said that public television and radio needed “a bit of liberty, some oxygen”. He then criticised various radio programmes that he claimed, “lean to the left or far left.”

Public broadcasting in France is split between television and radio. France Télévisions has four national channels and 24 regional channels. Radio France has national and local stations – among them France Inter, the most popular in the country with 7 million listeners a day. It also dominates the French podcast market.

Chénu told France 2 the National Rally intended to sell the national stations but hold on to international radio and television stations, like RFI, France 24 and Arte, as well as channels in overseas territories.

The threat comes at a delicate time for French public media. When president Emmanuel Macron made the surprise election announcement this month, parliament was trying to decide how public media should be independently funded.

Macron scrapped the TV licence fee in 2022, instead opting to fund public broadcasting through a portion of VAT, but that funding is due to end next year leaving the decision in the hands of whoever is elected in July.

Journalists at public broadcasters went on strike earlier this year over another of Macron’s proposals to merge the two broadcasters.

A media historian at the University of Reims, Alexis Lévrier, told The Guardian that public broadcasting has long been a target of the far-right National Rally. “The privatisation they are thinking of is a way to try to silence media they accuse of being woke, leftist and opposed to their ideology. It is to silence a media they see as too insolent.”

“The ambition that we put forward during the presidential election remains on the agenda: that of eventually privatising public broadcasting, in order to make savings, with, of course, a set of specifications,” – Jordan Bardella, president of National Rally

He added: “Public broadcasting in France is in a paradoxical situation where it has never had such large audiences and high satisfaction ratings from viewers and listeners, but has never been so fragile.”

According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s most recent Digital News Report, France Télévisions remains the most trusted nationwide news source, with France Info (part of Radio France) the second. France TV is also the most widely used news source amongst newspapers, television and radio, while France Info has the fourth largest following online.

Campaigning for the surprise election has been fierce, with opinion polls this week suggesting the National Rally is ahead of a left-wing alliance, with President Macron’s centrist group trailing in third.

ANALYSIS:

The Public Media Alliance finds any move to threaten or privatise public media in France deeply disturbing. A well-resourced, independent, and impartial public media that is owned by and accountable to the public is a vital part of any democracy, as shown by the high levels of trust the public have in them. Any such move would add to the worrying attacks on public media being seen across Europe.