Monday, May 16, the Grenoble city council gave the green light to wearing the burkini in municipal swimming pools. And listeners are surprised to have heard a pro burkini speaker explain that in rigorous Islamic countries, the burkini is an advance that allows women to circumvent the law.
And he deduces that it is also a step forward in France, because it allows Muslim women to go to the swimming pool. And so, dListeners do not understand that it was allowed to say on your antenna that the burkini is a feminist advance without the journalist intervening.
Emmanuelle Daviet: In a social debate on the burkini or on any other subject, what should be the attitude of the journalist doing the interview?
Matthew Monoloni: First of all, the journalist is systematically the opponent of the guest, when I say the opponent, that does not mean interrupting him permanently. Moreover, listeners, when this is the case, complain enough about it and they are right. So it’s to be in contradiction, but it’s also to be listening. And I remind you that we, on the air, on FranceInfo, we hear points of view that are very different.
In this case, there, it was a sociologist invited from Frédéric Carbonne’s 12/14 who had effectively explained this notion that he was defending, which was to say – he had not said that it was a feminist advance, obviously – but he had said that in certain countries, it allowed women who did not have access to the swimming pool where there are men to be able to have access to it. And there, in this case, he said that it was the same thing, in Grenoble.
So we continue with the Cannes Film Festival. Here is a question from a listener:
“What justifies lavish spending to be present at the festival? Settling on the pontoon of the Majestic, is it really useful and necessary to inform about the Cannes Film Festival at a time when all French people have difficult end of the month. Public money is therefore used to pay for luxury holidays for journalists under the guise of relaying information that is certainly important, but very futile in these times”.
Matthieu Mondoloni, how do you respond to this comment?
First of all, there are no vacations, we don’t pay them vacations. There are paid holidays, but it is certainly not in Cannes, and it is not our journalists who benefit from it. No, no, our journalists, they are there to work. They also work a lot. They have extended days because it’s a cultural event, I remind you. The Cannes Film Festival was not held during the Covid period last year. It was held in the summer, but not in May.
We find a new Cannes festival, in a very complicated context for the cinema, since we know that apart from blockbusters, it is no longer successful in theaters. So it’s shunned by the public. There is also the role of platforms today which is very important. We know that they are not invited to the Cannes Film Festival, they are not welcome. And then you also saw it with the opening ceremony, there is news that invites itself. It was the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, who was also a guest of this opening ceremony, who broadcast a message. It was picked up everywhere. So there is a real issue to cover. We cannot be absent from this event. It is a major cultural event.
And then, just to reassure our listeners, we don’t have expensive resources at franceinfo. I can tell you here. Basically, we obviously have reporting technicians who are present and we have two journalists for the beginning and for the closing. And otherwise, there is only one journalist, Matteu Maestracci, who stays for the duration of the Cannes Film Festival to cover the various screenings, to do interviews with the directors.
There is a Russian director who is invited, obviously, who is a dissident. So there is news, there are films that are expected, like Top Gun by Tom Cruise. Of course, we covered it. So it’s a very wide range, culturally speaking, politically speaking and societally speaking.
Emmanuelle Daviet: And it is certainly not a vacation for the journalists who cover this event…
Almost three months after the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, listeners want to know how the editorial staff is adapting to deal with this conflict over the long term and whether editorial coverage will be well maintained. Because there could be temptations to talk more about lighter news, with precisely the Cannes Film Festival or Roland-Garros.
Matthew Mondoloni: We obviously continue to cover the war in Ukraine. Daily, we have subjects that are broadcast on our antenna. It no longer has the same wings as when it started, of course, we are soon three months away from war, but we still have two teams permanently on the ground. We work with the international editorial staff of Radio France on a daily basis, to try to see which subjects we can continue to cover. And they are broadcast once again, so teams that have been relayed for three months.
So obviously, we have slightly reviewed the sizing of the teams on the ground. We were up to four, even five teams simultaneously in Ukraine. From now on, there are two of us, but we also give our journalists more time on site to be able to identify important subjects. And I can tell you, and to answer this listener that he doesn’t care, he’s right. We are going to continue to follow this conflict and we are also the envy of many brothers and sisters in the Parisian marketplace where there are all the national media, because we have precisely very dense, very important coverage and I repeats, obviously very useful for our listeners.