The Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) ended, this Thursday, November 14, a three and a half month pause in its sanctions against CNews. At the start of the evening, it announced two new fines imposed on the Canal+ group's news channel. The first, in the amount of 100,000 euros, sanctions a religious program broadcast on February 25, “In search of spirit”, where abortion was presented as “a cause of mortality”, without contradiction on the set. A presentation deemed contrary to the “obligation of honesty and rigor” in information processing. Puremédias invites you to discover the sequence in the video above.
A “pretext for virulent and controversial positions”
The second, for an amount of 50,000 euros, targets the show “Morandini Live”, broadcast on September 28. During this broadcast, a subject was introduced as follows: “Parents of Muslim students put pressure on the management of a college in Pau to provide prayer rooms for students during a school trip to the Pyrenees.“Evoking a”pretext for taking virulent and polemical positions“, Arcom concluded that the “facts in question, which turned out to be inaccurate, had not been the subject of sufficient verification and did not give rise to oratorical precautions“.
These decisions come at a strategic moment: the regulator is currently renegotiating the channel agreements for their authorization to broadcast on DTT for the next ten years. CNews, like its colleagues in the Bolloré group, is the subject of scrutiny, while the group has already suffered several setbacks this year. In July, Arcom refused to renew the authorization of C8, which must a priori cease broadcasting on TNT at the end of February 2025.
ALSO READ: “It’s an opinion channel with an ideological project”: Benjamin Duhamel reveals what he thinks of CNews
Vincent Bolloré's channel, however, is contesting this decision before the Council of State this Friday, November 15. The highly anticipated hearing comes in a context of growing tensions. The channel launched a petition last week to mobilize its viewers, already collecting more than 600,000 signatures. In total, the channel has accumulated 7.6 million euros in fines due to the slippages of its flagship host, Cyril Hanouna. His insults towards MP Louis Boyard in November 2022 resulted in a record fine of 3.5 million euros.
For its part, CNews is also in the sights of Arcom for its repeated failures to comply with the obligations of pluralism and rigor of information. Last February, the Council of State required Arcom to clarify the rules relating to respect for pluralism of opinions in the media. A decision which stems from a request from Reporters Without Borders (RSF), criticizing the regulator's inaction in the face of “manifest and lasting imbalances” channels, and particularly CNews. According to a count by the newspaper “Le Monde”, the two channels of the Bolloré group have accumulated 47 reprimands, a record in France.
