The Worrying State of Pluralism in the French Media

The French press likes to give lessons on democracy, European values and the rule of law. Yet France is certainly one of the democracies where the lack of pluralism, the almost totalitarian unanimity of the media, is most worrying. French journalists are very concerned about press freedom in Poland, but in that country, 2/3 of the mass media are against the government and fire red-hot bullets at it every day.

Of course, unlike in France, a third of the media are conservative, not progressive. In France, 90-95% of the mass media are progressive. The public media, which are highly influential, are even ultra-progressive. While around 30% of French people have voted at least once for Marine Le Pen or Eric Zemmour, you must have, at best, around 1 or 2% (or even 0%) of all salaried hosts, presenters, journalists or columnists in the public media who have voted for one of these two candidates. Although 70% of French people would like to see a pause in immigration, among the hundreds of thousands of hours of public media programmes you will only find between 0 and 3 journalists employed by the public media who defend that position on air. It's just that anyone who doesn't think like them is on the extreme right, and it's a good idea not to let them have their say. Even 30 years ago things weren’t like this, but little by little, all those who refused to submit to a certain authorised way of thinking were pushed aside. As far as the private mass media are concerned, they are not as left-wing as their public counterparts, but despite this, they almost exclusively promote 'progressive' ideologies. There are 4 exceptions: the all-news channel CNews, the radio station Europe1, the magazine Valeurs actuelles and the Figaro media. In the remaining fifty or so mass media, you will never hear one of their editorial writers criticise immigration, gender theories, etc.; it's unthinkable. The worst thing is that, apart from the debates between elected representatives, adversarial debates between informed people with opposing views have all but disappeared.

Recently, the editorial staff of the Journal du Dimanche (JDD) went on strike for several weeks because the owner of the weekly wanted to appoint Geoffroy Lejeune, the former managing editor of the magazine Valeurs actuelles, as its new editor. The journalists at Le JDD voted 96% in favour of continuing a strike action until the following two demands were met: "to abandon the appointment of the former editor of the far-right magazine Valeurs actuelles and to offer the editorial staff guarantees of legal and editorial independence".

In France, a far-right person is not someone who contests the results of elections, is against democracy and wants an authoritarian regime to be established - it is just anyone who is against immigration. Geoffroy Lejeune clearly displays this opinion and is close to Éric Zemmour. What's more impressive is the Soviet-style score of 96% for the vote against him. At least 30% of French people have the same opinions as Mr Lejeune and 70% share them. But 96% of the journalists in this editorial office are totally against him. Some forty journalist associations from other newsrooms are publicly supporting the strike. Almost all the press titles are now labelling the magazine Valeurs actuelles as extreme right-wing, even though it has never called for violence or challenged either the result of an election or the democratic system itself.

The "funniest" thing is that these journalists, who fancy themselves great resistance fighters defending a counter-power that is essential to democracy, have asked the most powerful politician in France, President Emmanuel Macron (supreme representative of power), to intervene on their behalf. He has responded to their request by launching "États généraux de l'information" which will surely, as usual, be as one-sided as it is one-sided. The Minister for Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, expressed her concern at the appointment of Geoffroy Lejeune as head of the JDD, and the Minister for National Education, Pap Ndiaye, lent his support to the striking journalists, saying: "When you look at CNews, when you look at what Europe 1 has become, when you look at the whole setup, the conclusion is obvious. Yes, CNews is very clearly far right. I think they're hurting democracy, there's no doubt about it. CNews, Europe1 and soon the JDD are controlled by Vincent Bolloré (a French billionaire and outspoken Catholic). He is despised by 90% of journalists, who see him as a far-right billionaire who imposes his "rancid ideas" on all the media he buys. Christophe Deloire (who has just been appointed by Emmanuel Macron as delegate-general of the États généraux de l'information), secretary-general of the NGO Reporters Without Borders, which supposedly defends press freedom and journalists, said: "Where Bolloré goes, journalism goes. He is an ogre who digests the media and transforms them into organs of opinion".

"Strangely enough", all these right-thinking, impartial people remain silent when members of the government attack their colleagues in the four non-progressive media and are never moved by the fact that 90-95% of the mass media in France are all progressive and owned either by the state or by 10 billionaires. It's true that we live in a wonderful time when billionaires and the 'left' share the same societal ideas (gender, immigration, etc.). These billionaires are progressives who only want the good of humanity and the planet. In no way do they consider that a consumer society that is as "open as possible" favours their interests and fortunes. They never attack the independence of their journalists and are born humanists who have become multi-billionaires by helping their fellow man, not by fighting for it. They have no ambition for power or influence. They have bought the media not to influence political power, but to help inform citizens in an impartial way so that they can make informed choices.

Jokes aside, we can only observe the control of many mainstream media by ultra-progressive multi-billionaires, such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and George Soros. In this landscape, the likes of Elon Musk and Vincent Bolloré are a welcome breath of fresh air for pluralism. But that shouldn't stop us from looking reality in the face. The ultra-billionaires now have a stranglehold on all the main channels of expression and opinion (TV channels, radio stations, social networks, the press) in Western democracies. Worse still, this stranglehold, combined with the mastery of artificial intelligence, gives them the power to influence our populations on a massive scale.