Martin Ajdari should succeed Roch-Olivier Maistre as president of Arcom

The rumors surrounding his name, spread in an echo of the magazine Challenges On Thursday, November 21, it will not have had time to prosper. Martin Ajdari, current deputy director general of the Paris Opera, is the personality that the Elysée “consider” appoint head of the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom), replacing Roch-Olivier Maistre, the press service of the Presidency of the Republic announced in a press release on Thursday, November 28 at noon.

For this appointment to be effective, it must be validated by the cultural affairs commission of the National Assembly and the Senate, after notification by their respective presidents, Yaël Braun-Pivet and Gérard Larcher. Only a negative vote of three-fifths of the votes cast in both committees could prevent this appointment. Maistre’s six-year term as head of the Authority will end on February 2.

Martín Ajdari, 55 years old, is not unknown in the audiovisual sector, which he knows like the back of his hand. Graduated from the National School of Administration in 1995 (René Char class), he held his first position in media at RFI in 1999. “He was my CFO there.recalls Jean-Paul Cluzel, who directed international radio from 1995 to 2004. When I was appointed president of Radio France in 2004, it was obvious to me to have him by my side. » Ajdari then became delegate general director of the public radio group, of which he will run for president in 2014. In vain, since the Higher Audiovisual Council had preferred Mathieu Gallet.

“Technical skills”

When Cluzel resigned in 2009, Martin Ajdari became deputy director of the Paris Opera, fourteen years after his mentor. “I consider him the son I never had.”confesses Mr. Cluzel, who did not fail to underline “intelligence, loyalty, integrity, sense of public service” from Mr. Ajdari to Roch-Olivier Maistre.

“He is a great servant of the State and will be a very good president of Arcom.assures Aurélie Filippetti, whose cabinet she headed for a few months in 2014, when she was Minister of Culture and Communication (then, equally briefly, that of Fleur Pellerin). Measured by his ability to express himself, he has technical ability and solid character; will be able to harmonize divergent points of view, taking into account the multiple interests at stake, especially democratic ones. »

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