French authorities responsible for regulating the functioning of the media are using their tools to combat disinformation, particularly in the health sector, and the lack of ideological plurality. After months of legal appeals, the Paris administrative court confirmed in August the withdrawal of the status of “online press service” from the media FranceSoir.fr, considering it “a danger to public health” for spreading hoaxes, conspiracy theories and lies. This means that the website will no longer be able to benefit from the subsidies and tax breaks enjoyed by other media in France.
FranceSoir.fr had inherited the name of a historic newspaper of French journalism (written with the spelling France-Soir) which counted among its signatures great names of literature – such as Joseph Kessel and Georges Simenon – and which had experienced a long decline until it ceased to publish a printed edition in 2011. Later, it reappeared only in digital version, with several projects of different orientation and a very limited audience.
“The worst enemies of the press now feed on its heritage,” declared press historian Alexis Lévrier a few days ago in an interview with France Info “Xavier Azalbert.” [actual propietario de francesoir.fr] takes advantage of the brand image of France-Soir to betray it; this is also what Vincent Bolloré is doing with the Sunday Journal“.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a turning point for Azalbert’s organization due to the spread of hoaxes about alternative remedies. “In 2020, due to the health crisis, the site took an editorial turn openly favorable to the most radical conspiracy movements,” underlines the Conspiracy Watch observatory in a note on FranceSoir.fr.
Francesoir.fr received valuable public support from the director of the Mediterranean University Hospital Institute of Infections, Didier Raoult, a defender of the use of chloroquine, in addition to being a figure highly appreciated by conspiracy theorists. However, the microbiologist has never denied the benefits of vaccination.
Raoult congratulated FranceSoir for being one of the first media outlets to question the validity of a study The Lancet -which had to be retracted later- which accused hydroxychloroquine of causing excess mortality. “In the months that followed, traffic to FranceSoir.fr recovered dramatically, going from a few hundred thousand per month to several million,” notes Conspiracy Watch.
Since then, FranceSoir.fr has increased its content in this regard and has been repeatedly accused of promoting false, biased or incomplete information, particularly in the health sector. The transparency portal NewsGuard placed it at the top of its top 10 disinformation sites in French in 2021 and denounced that this media outlet “seriously violates the fundamental principles of journalism”, in particular by “publishing unfounded allegations about the Covid-19 pandemic and other subjects”.
Google Ad Blocking
In December 2022, the Joint Commission for Publications and Press Agencies (CPPAP), the body responsible for regulating online press services, decided to take action on the issue. Composed of equal numbers of representatives of the state administration and journalism professionals, the CPPAP refused to renew francesoir.fr’s accreditation.
To do this, the commission relied on a ruling by the Ministry of Health, which considered that the content of the site could constitute “a danger to public health”. The loss of official media status does not prevent FranceSoir from continuing to exist, but it closes the door to the advantages granted by the State to communications companies, such as direct aid or certain tax exemptions.
Although the owners of FranceSoir.fr obtained an injunction to suspend the decision, the CPPAP upheld its decision last July, finding that the site “favorably presents therapeutic and preventive practices that are likely to divert patients from therapies that comply with current scientific knowledge,” and declared that it did not have the required “general interest character.” A decision that has just been confirmed by the Paris administrative court.
FranceSoir.fr had already been excluded from Google’s advertising service after the broadcast of a report on the public television program Further investigation in 2021 in which its operation and its drift towards disinformation and conspiracy theory were described.
Channel removed from TNT
A few weeks before the decision on the status of FranceSoir.fr was announced, another major media regulator, the Audiovisual and Digital Communications Regulatory Authority (Arcom), announced its decision not to maintain the TNT offer in France on channel C8, which is part of Vincent Bolloré’s media empire.
At the beginning of the year, Arcom – commonly known in France as the audiovisual policeman – carried out a process of renewing the licenses of DTT channels which included the examination of the current offer and new candidates.
The channels’ compliance with ethical and legal obligations was part of the criteria. The same goes for public interest, economic viability, informative pluralism (on the channel and the television offer in general) and investment in French audiovisual production.
The C8 channel has been subject to multiple sanctions. Most of the violations targeted the channel’s star presenter: Cyril Hanouna, from the channel’s most-watched debate show, Don’t touch my post.
In one of the most controversial sequences – which earned him one of the heaviest sanctions – the presenter pretended to be a man who had placed an ad on a contact site, with a false photograph. Under a false identity and without realizing that they were live, he called the men who had responded to the ad live by phone to ridicule them, inciting them to make sexual suggestions, amidst the laughter of the collaborators on the set.
In another notorious case, Hanouna hurled insults live on air against the MP for France rebels Louis Boyard, guest on the set and former collaborator of the show who accused the owner of the channel, Vincent Bolloré, of deforesting Cameroon.
Notice to CNews
This is the first time that a channel has been deprived of a broadcast frequency since the arrival of DTT in France in 2005. “One of the selection criteria provided for by law for candidates for renewal is respect for pluralism, honesty and the independence of information. That is to say: the principles essential to the democratic functioning of the State,” explains Camille Broyelle, professor of public law at the University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas, in an article in The Conversation. “Given the demands and sanctions imposed on C8, we can imagine that the few guarantees promised by C8 were not sufficient, in particular the deferred broadcast of the Don’t touch my post“.
The other element followed with more interest in the process was the renewal of the license of CNews, a continuous news channel – also belonging to the Bolloré group – which has become the media mouthpiece of the ultra-conservatives, particularly on issues such as security and immigration, on the model of Fox News in the United States.
Although the regulator has upheld its license, at all renewal hearings it has insisted that the network must meet time commitments on topics and approaches to maintain plurality. Failing that, Arcom could also revoke its license. “The main offense that C8 is accused of is the use it makes of its channels to promote an ideology. This is something that is also attributable to CNews,” writes Camille Broyelle.
