Adult news treated at a child’s level: the public group France Télévisions is launching a weekly current affairs program for 7-11 year olds on Sunday on the France 4 channel, “Mission info”, it announced on Friday. Lasting 10 to 12 minutes, each issue will deal with a unique subject. The first will be devoted to Mayotte after Cyclone Chido and the second, on January 19, to the Vendée Globe sailing race. Presented by journalists Myriam Bounafaa, Raphäl Yem and Elise Lambert, “Mission info” will be broadcast on France 4 on Sunday at 11:45 a.m. then rebroadcast on Wednesday at 1:40 p.m. It will be available on the france.TV platform, the Okoo youth app, the franceinfo.fr website and YouTube.
“The heart of our target is CE2, CM1, CM2”, for whom “there is no offer on TV”, explains Celia Meriguet, director of digital news at franceinfo. Why an information offer for such a young age? “Children are not in a bubble, they are confronted with current events whether we like it or not,” she replies. “Some people hear snippets of information on the radio, on TV, and it happens in playgrounds. The idea is that it is better to inform them in an appropriate way.”
“We don’t put any barriers” for the choice of subjects but “we pay great attention to what we can say and what we can show,” continues the manager. For example, in Mayotte, “there have been deaths and we say so, but we don’t dwell on it.” And “there are images that we have chosen not to show”.
Variation of “What is the information?”
“Mission info” is the variation of “C quoi l’info?”, a daily newspaper created in 2023 for 12-18 year olds. In addition to its TV broadcast, the latter has 160 million views on all social networks (TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube). Her little sister “is not in a social media logic”, since 7-11 year olds do not frequent them, underlines Celia Meriguet. Part of the show is filmed on set and the other offers reporting. The set is colorful and the presenters stand, to break the image of the “classic TV set” to which the youngest “are allergic”. Likewise, “Mission info” only deals with one subject, unlike a news program, because a preparatory study showed that young children “are troubled by the fact that we move from one subject to another”, according to Celia Meriguet.
