80 million euros in cuts, 700 jobs threatened: will public broadcasting disappear?

It’s one minute to midnight for public broadcasting. Its provisional financing through a levy on VAT, decided in disaster in 2022 after the removal of the fee by Emmanuel Macron, expires on December 31, 2024. The urgency is therefore for its survival and its independence.

Time has accelerated because of the dissolution, suspending the various financing bill proposals. Finally, Parliament will examine, in accelerated reading, a text presented to the Senate on October 23. Developed by the right and the Center, it is supported by senators Cédric Vial (LR), Catherine Morin-Desailly (UDI), Roger Karoutchi (LR) and Laurent Lafon (UDI). Their bill plans to set the VAT financing solution in stone, while ensuring specific financing by “revenue collection” for the Arte channel.

“In an emergency, we have no other choice but to accept this bill”

This solution does not satisfy the unions. On the one hand, because “VAT is the most unfair tax that exists”recalls Lionel Thompson, secretary of the SNJ-CGT of Radio France. But also because “continuing this funding would be a stopgap measure that does not meet our long-term needs”he explains.

The trade unionists at France Télévisions and Radio France have their backs to the wall. “In an emergency, we have no other choice but to accept this bill in order to avoid being included in the state budget from January, explains Pierre Mouchel, CGT delegate at France Télévisions. Such a situation would be catastrophic, because it would allow the government to make cuts, including during the financial year. »

The trade union organizations of France Télévisions, Radio France and France Médias Monde are unanimous: they would have preferred that the bill proposed by socialist senator Sylvie Robert be debated in the Senate, and worked with the economist Julia Cagé, who proposes the (re) creation of a progressive and universal contribution.

“Our text aims to provide public broadcasting with truly sustainable, predictable funding based on an independent resource. A fair and progressive contribution would be established, in a logic of fiscal and social justice – the higher a household’s income, the more it contributes to the financing of public broadcasting. specifies the senator for whom : “The objective is thus to guarantee stable resources for public broadcasting, commensurate with its ever more important and numerous missions”.

Sylvie Robert also indicates that no position has yet been decided at the level of her group on the bill proposed by the right, which will be the only one to be discussed in session on October 23. But “We want at all costs to avoid budgeting which would pose serious problems in terms of guarantees of independence and which would place our external public audiovisual sector in a more than delicate situation with our European and international partners. To put it clearly, budgeting would permanently weaken our public audiovisual sector! she exclaims.

“Public broadcasting to put an end to media concentration in the hands of private groups”

The left, in the Senate as well as in the National Assembly, will therefore most certainly vote for the bill proposed by the right in order to deal with the emergency. According to Pierre Laurent, member of the PCF media culture commission, the battle will continue thereafter: “The GDR group in the Assembly is currently working on a bill establishing the need to restore a progressive and universal contribution. »

For the former senator from Paris, “We should also seize this moment to bring back into discussion the 1986 law protecting privatization. Public broadcasting must regain a much more important place to put an end to the concentration of media in the hands of private groups”.

In this sense, in the current context where the words taxes currently give rise to systematic outcry, Lionel Thompson insists: “We are not talking about tax but about contribution. I think that the French can agree to it if we present to them the issue: a financially independent public audiovisual sector. We must be clear on this point, this is the only democratic guarantee in a media landscape totally dominated by billionaire bosses. »

Put the notion of public service back at the heart of the debate.

For Pierre Mouchel, it is imperative to put the notion of public service back at the heart of the debate. And to debate it with the French so that they become aware that, given the diversity of channels and content, everyone consumes public broadcasting at one time or another. He takes a critical look, in particular, at France Télévisions.

According to him, “we need to rethink certain operations in the information factory. Because it is not always sincere but guided by the management team who sometimes decides on the angle of the events covered, to the detriment of the facts and the pluralism of ideas”.

The other burning issue is the budget itself. Public broadcasting will not be spared by the austerity policy announced by Michel Barnier. According to the daily the EchoesFrance Médias Monde, Radio France and France Télévisions should see their budget cut by 80 million euros in 2025 compared to the budgetary trajectories established for 2024-2028. However, deadweight losses have already been recorded.

The transformation credits planned by the former Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak, stopped being paid when Rachida Dati took her post and imposed her merger project, now on hold. However, companies had already undertaken these transformations.

The questions from parliamentarians addressed to employee representatives confirm rumors circulating: 700 full-time equivalents would be threatened, as well as the reduction in conventional coverage. What the unions will formally oppose.