France’s Conseil d’État orders ARCOM to re-examine case against CNews

Source: Canal+

France’s Conseil d’État, the country’s supreme court for administrative justice, has called on media and communications regulator ARCOM to re-examine a complaint by Reporters Without Borders against Canal+’s controversial news channel CNews, seen by many as a French equivalent of Fox News, for insufficient diversity of opinion during debate programmes.

The Conseil d’État ruled that, in assuring that channels respected rules regarding pluralism of information, ARCOM had to take into account diversity of thought and opinion represented by collective participants in programmes, not just those involved who are politicians.

It also said that ARCOM was obliged to ensure that information broadcast by a channel was independent, taking into account all functioning and characteristics of channels’ programming and not just specific programme extracts.

ARCOM had previously said that it only had to take into account the time accorded to political personalities when considering complaints about pluralism, and concluded that Reporters Without Frontiers complaint could not include evidence of CNews’ failure to meet obligations regarding the material broadcast.

The Conseil d’État has rejected that interpretation of the rules, telling ARCOM that channels must ensure pluralism in a wider sense.

The body also rejected ARCOM’s decision not to consider Reporters Without Frontiers’ complaint that CNews had failed to respect rules regarding independence, citing interventions by its owner.

The Conseil d’État did not pronounce on whether the programmes broadcast by CNews actually complied with pluralism and independence of information rules, but rather that ARCOM had not interpreted its obligations correctly. The regulator now has six months to re-examine the case.

Turning point

Reporters Without Frontiers hailed the Conseil d’État’s ruling as “a turning point in enforcing the principles of pluralism and independence of information” in broadcasting.

ARCOM meanwhile said that the Conseil d’État’s interpretation of the 1986 media law “reinforced the power of the regulator regarding obligations of media in matters of honesty, pluralism of opinions and independence of information, respecting their editorial freedom”.

CNews (and Canal+) are owned by Vivendi, whose ultimate proprietor Vincent Bolloré is known for his right-wing sympathies. The channel has been accused of giving a platform to far-right figures such as former presidential candidate Eric Zemmour.

ARCOM is not alone among regulators in being called out recently for failing to tackle controversialist programming on news channels. The UK’s Ofcom has been accused in recent days of giving a free pass to UK news service GB News over presenter Neil Oliver’s claims that COVID vaccinations were responsible for causing what he described as “turbo cancer”.