A year after the social movement which disrupted, for weeks, the France 3 Picardie television news at midday (ICI 12/13) and evening (ICI 19/20), a new strike is announced on Monday November 4 for a duration of 24 hours.
This time, the unions (CFDT, CGT, FO, SNJ and SUD), united in inter-union form, are mobilizing against the project to deploy the ICI brand (owned by Radio France which manages the France bleu radio stations) to the detriment of the name history France 3. The president of France Télévisions, Delphine Ernotte Cunci, and her counterpart at Radio France, Sibyle Veil, announced in October 2023 the eventual union of France 3 and France Bleu under the “ICI” brand, strengthening cooperation illustrated in particular by the joint morning shows launched in 2019. This change will be visible from 6:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m., during the “ICI” 19/20 television news (JT) and during the regional weekend and second part of the evening broadcasts.
« For more than fifty years, the 3 has been part of the national heritage. In the minds of the French and in the collective imagination, regional television is backed by the number 3. First with FR3, then with France 3. For management, all that doesn't count. She chose to remove this reference to the third regional channel in all regional programs, replacing it with a tasteless and catch-all adverb. “, deplores the inter-union which demands the abandonment of the project, the broadcast of regional programs on France 3 under the France 3 “brand” and not ICI, the maintenance of the website within France Télévisions or even the cessation of publication on the site francebleu.fr.
“France 3 still exists”
This last point is important, the inter-union sees, in fact, in the deployment on the air of the “ICI” logo a first step towards a merger between the third channel of the Network and the France bleu radios. The France 3 inter-union fears “ subsidiary development outside parent companies, with very significant social consequences for employees and for employment, particularly for young people ».
On Wednesday, during a press conference, Philippe Martinetti, deputy director of antennas and programs responsible for the local offering of France Télévisions, tried to defuse the situation, by promising that the France 3 logo would still be present after January on national tranches. “ France 3 still exists “, he insisted. “ But we push the cursor a little further » on the regionalization of its offer with the “ICI” label.
At France Bleu, we share the same “concern”
On the France Bleu side, we share the same concern, that of a merger which does not say its name and which would inexorably lead to a restructuring marked by job cuts (in particular duplication at the level of websites). This is in any case the fear of the CGT, which indicates that it is not calling for a strike this Monday but does not rule out a movement in the near future.
« There is no strike notice filed on Monday at France Bleu as is the case at France 3, but a majority of our employees are very worried to see the arrival of ICI materialize. An arrival that is poorly experienced and poorly understood, even though the current government announces that it wants to impose more cuts in the budgets of public broadcasting companies. For CGT Radio France, ICI is a financial mismanagement that could seriously harm the France Bleu network, not to mention the loss of our identity and the confusion that it will create for our listeners. », Indicates Céline Autin, CGT France Bleu union representative.
« We do not work in the same way, we do not deal with the same subjects, it is inconsistent, under the guise of savings, to bring us together under the same house », confides a France Bleu employee on condition of anonymity.
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