Postponed! The text providing for the merger of the different public broadcasting companies, which was to be debated in the National Assembly yesterday, Thursday May 23, and this Friday the 24th, was in fact finally postponed. Probably at the end of June. “But this is not particularly good news,” an executive from the France Télévisions group tells us off-screen, “because the discontent among employees will not necessarily weaken by then…” The discontent? A good part of the 16,000 public broadcasting employees responded favorably to the unions’ call for a strike. Around 12% on France TV side, and 72% in the Radio France editorial offices (Source SNJ).
Yesterday, the inter-union of France Télévisions, Radio France, France Médias Monde and the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) met at Place Colette (Paris), in front of the Ministry of Culture, to express her disagreement with what she considers to be the creation of a “French-style BBC”. And upstream, this week, through a column published by our colleagues in Le Monde, more than 1,400 employees of the group, including Nicolas Demorand and Sonia Kronlund, warned against a reform that they consider “demagogic, ineffective and dangerous” .
Energetically supported by Rachida Dati since her appointment to the Ministry of Culture last January, the famous text provides for the creation of a joint holding company on January 1, 2025, called France Médias, thus preparing the ground for a merger which could be effective as soon as the next year. A plan established over two years, therefore, far from pleasing everyone. Already because, according to our information, the different directions are not on the same wavelength. Under the Radio France flag, the staff led by Sibyle Veil (CEO of Radio France) would be surprised by such a desire, while the group, carried by the locomotive France Inter, has “never been so strong” … while at France TV, the clan of Delphine Ernotte (President of France Télévisions) claims to have always been in favor of such a project. “We are convinced that this would encourage collaboration, particularly on continuous news and all digital technology,” says someone close to management.
Arguments that are far from convincing all employees, according to the unions. For Renaud Bernard and Bertrand Chapeau, both central FO union delegates at France TV, “the opacity of the contours of this merger”, as much as “the absence of solutions found for the moment” concerning the group’s financing method, constitutes serious reasons to doubt the project. And if the simple holding project seemed viable to them, that of merger, much less so. “Because within the framework of a holding company, everyone keeps their collective agreements. But in a merger, you have to find something in common. The uniqueness of each profession can thus be difficult to respect.” Furthermore, they fear that what is presented as a practical plan is in reality an economic plan, and that many positions will be eliminated: “today public broadcasting costs 4.5 billion euros per year. If the objective is in reality to save money, we would like them to be honest enough to tell us so. And on what scale? » In an interview with Le Figaro in April, Delphine Ernotte was already clear on the subject: “the budgetary trajectory set by the State has already quantified significant savings to be made, of the order of 200 million euros just for France Télévisions by 2028.” Obviously, such a sum will not fall from the sky…
The future financing system of France TV, in fact, could well be the future sinews of the “war” surrounding this probable merger. Because if it is indexed to VAT today, it will no longer be able to be in 2025. And among the potential replacement solutions, one in particular makes the group’s walls tremble: state budgeting. “This could imply that our editorial line and our content are scrutinized… and that the sums allocated may vary depending on the level of satisfaction of the governments in place,” fears Bertrand Chapeau. Contacted, an employee of the France Info channel as well as a former editor-in-chief of Radio France believe for their part “that a kick in the anthill” is essential today. Particularly in terms of respect for plurality. “I remember a false election organized within the editorial staff of France Info, in the run-up to the presidential election, to find out which way the editorial staff leaned. It was Mélenchon who won by a wide margin. So obviously, this was felt on all levels. From the guests, to the chosen reporting angles… everything was conditioned,” the former supervisor explains to us. In this sense, shortly after her arrival at Culture, Rachida Dati herself underlined the importance of the subject: “freedom of information must be preserved. The public service also has a mission of citizenship education. It supposes giving all opinions, those which make up the diversity of France, their rightful place.”
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Financing, plurality, savings… so many hot topics which have continued to agitate the public service, from here to the holding company, then, probably, to the merger. From management to employees. As we write these lines, according to our information, most unions are already hoping to be able to launch a new strike in view of the next examination of the text. Only FO, on the France TV side, is still waiting to comment. “We are waiting to see the positioning of elected officials and possible details on the strategy of the subject,” explains Renaud Bernard at FO. One thing seems certain, however, within the public service itself and its different groups, the interests of some are (for the moment) not always those of others…
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