Arcom sends a warning to Radio France

Arcom (Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication) sends a warning to Radio France for a controversial sketch by Guillaume Meurice in the context of the conflict in the Middle East.

Arcom sent a warning to Radio France for a controversial sketch by Guillaume Meurice on Benyamin Netanyahu, last October 29 on France Inter, the regulator told AFP on Thursday November 23. A warning that comes in the context of war between Israel and Hamas.

In the Arcom disciplinary scale, the warning occupies the second level, after the letter reminding us of the regulations and before the formal notice and sanctions. The one addressed to Radio France closes the controversy that arose at the end of October from a column by comedian Guillaume Meurice, who on France Inter described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “kind of a Nazi, but without a foreskin.”

“Attack on the proper exercise of missions” by Radio France

In a rare decision for a humorous sequence, Arcom considered that this sketch had “undermined the proper exercise by Radio France of its missions and the relationship of trust that it must maintain with all of its listeners“, according to the letter sent to the president of Radio France, Sibyle Veil, consulted by AFP. “The risks of repercussions on the cohesion of our society could not be ignored, particularly in a context marked by the resurgence of anti-Semitic acts”justified the authority, “by reaffirming the importance of protecting the freedom of expression of comedians”. Arcom also specifies that it has “taken note of the warning” addressed by Sibyle Veil to Guillaume Meurice.

Furthermore, three sequences broadcast on CNews, including two after October 7, were transmitted to an independent rapporteur, a preliminary step to possible sanctions for the news channel of the Canal+ group (Vivendi). In one of them, taken from the program Le Grand Rendez-vous on October 29, the polemicist Eric Zemmour (Reconquête!) estimates Islam “incompatible” with France and the Republic. In another, two days later, lawyer Arno Klarsfeld aims for a “Muslim minority which is active” in matters of anti-Semitism and mentions the many Muslims working “on construction sites” and having “access to explosives”. In the third, broadcast at the end of September, before the start of the war, the journalist Geoffroy Lejeune believes that anti-Semitism is one of the “consequences” of “Arab-Muslim immigration, like part of drug trafficking, like prison overcrowding, like the abaya, like all that.”

These decisions by Arcom come after the study of around ten sequences linked to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the regulator having been notified of around twenty in total.