Quentin Bataillon is a Renaissance deputy for the first constituency of the Loire and he chairs the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the allocation of frequencies for TNT, digital terrestrial television, initiated by France Insoumise. The objective: To shed light on the practices of these channels, of which Quentin Bataillon points out that the frequencies belong to the State and that in fact, they are subject to specifications including, for example, the pluralism of debates or even the diversity. “DTT must remain a protected and more regulated space than other television spaces and I think that is extremely important,” he said. This commission is currently hearing from all the audiovisual players concerned, in particular the managers and journalists of CNews, a channel that Arcom is ordered by the Council of State to better control. At the same time, the renewal process for TNT channels was launched on Wednesday February 28. Concerned: TMC, TFX, LCI, W9, Gulli, Paris Première, BFMTV, NRJ 12, Canal+, C8, CNews, CStar, Canal+ Sport, Canal+ Cinéma and Planète+ whose broadcasting authorization expires in 2025 and which have until May to apply.
franceinfo: A call for applications is launched on Wednesday by Arcom, the media regulator. Any publisher can apply to obtain one of the 15 frequencies put into play for a period of ten years. At the same time as this procedure, at the National Assembly, you have been hearing audiovisual players for several weeks. What is the purpose of this commission of inquiry?
Quentin Bataillon: Allow me, just before answering the question, to have a message of solidarity towards the employees of the Casino group since the Casino company has its head office in my constituency in Saint-Etienne and indeed, these are difficult times to both for its employees but also for the entire territory. To answer your question, the commission of inquiry was requested by France Insoumise. Its role is to study the framework of these TNT channels. These TNT channels, remember, have frequencies which belong to the State. The State makes these frequencies available to companies through agreements and free of charge. TNT must remain a protected space and more regulated than other television spaces and I think this is extremely important.
Actually want to control the controller?
That’s kind of the idea. The idea is actually to look at the role of content attribution and control of these channels. The commission of inquiry is not intended to give an opinion on the renewal or non-renewal of a channel, that is extremely important. We are not looking forward-looking, on the contrary, we are investigating to see if everything is working correctly, if the framework is the right one. I think we have to side with the French: can we be satisfied with what our fellow citizens see on television?
When we set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry, generally, there is a problem. Do you think there is a problem?
It’s a little early to say because we haven’t finished the investigation. We made the choice to really follow through on the work. We have round tables with researchers, we are also in contact with all citizens, everyone who wanted it. We went to see all the obligations of the conventions, all the obligations, it is not only pluralism, it is also advertising, it is also diversity, it is also the whole of Access, particularly to the blind, is the sum total of all these obligations.
When France Insoumise proposes this commission of inquiry, it has in mind the idea of the C8 or CNews problem, which it does not consider up to par in terms of pluralism.
Yes, I understood that there were channels and groups that were targeted by France Insoumise. In any case, my role as president is to ensure the proper functioning of the commission of inquiry. If we see the Canal+ group on Thursday, it’s because we have already seen all the other groups, all the other channels, before. So all obligations were swept away. We have also seen extremely important subjects concerning information with BFMTV. Tomorrow we have important sequences.
On Thursday, Maxime Saada, the boss of Canal+, will be auditioned and then several figures from CNews such as Pascal Praud, Laurence Ferrari and Sonia Mabrouk. Why journalists? You didn’t do it for BFMTV, for example.
I think it was extremely important. These are journalists who also bring the subject of pluralism to life. They all made extremely harsh editorials, particularly with regard to the decision of the Council of State which we can come back to. So, for me, it was important that the place of contradiction, the place of confrontation, was precisely this commission of inquiry.
“It is important that we not only have the channel bosses, the channel administrators, but that we really have the journalists to understand how they work, how they function, how the editorial team works.”
Quentin Bataillon, Renaissance deputyat franceinfo
Let the debate take place in the commission of inquiry and not on stage and on the radio.
Will Sunday’s slip-up on CNews fuel your debates? CNews which decrees abortion as the leading cause of death in the world ahead of cancer, ahead of tobacco. She has since apologized. Are you definitely going to talk about it?
It was indeed an extremely serious, despicable presentation. Many of us MPs deplored this. There was indeed an official apology from the channel and I myself will have the opportunity to re-interview, tomorrow, Serge Nedjar and all the participants of the round table on this subject as on other subjects on which we may have been shocked in the past.
Vincent Bolloré will be auditioned on March 13. On March 14, it should have been Cyril Hanouna, but he replied: “No, I am not free”. He said this on his live show.
I confirm that he will be present on March 14. I think it was very important to remind Cyril Hanouna that when you have your notoriety, when you are watched so much, especially when you are on a TNT channel, you have a responsibility. An additional responsibility towards other channels and I was thinking in particular of all the young people who watch it and who could say to themselves: “Well, he is summoned by the Assembly, but that is not important, that doesn’t interest him so he doesn’t go.”
Is it obligatory to answer it?
I confirm to you that it is obligatory and I confirm to you that everything will go well. He will be present on March 14, the day and time initially set by the commission of inquiry.
How do you react to the injunction made to Arcom by the Council of State, to better control CNews by now appreciating the balance of currents of thought of hosts, columnists and guests?
I think we have to be very careful and look at things coldly. What the Council of State actually says is that the current calculation, that is to say the taking into account of speaking times by Arcom, is not satisfactory. They are right. If I take just one example, is it normal that Philippe de Villiers does not have his time counted every time he gives us long editorials on CNews? No, this is not normal. However, I think we need to be very careful. You have to be very careful not to go too far. The idea is not to catalog all the speakers and even less the journalists. I imagine that you yourself would not like someone to put a label on you.
All audiovisual media are affected by this decision.
That would bring a lot of recourse, a real dysfunction and I see it on the ground. I was alerted on the market a few days ago by a lady who told me: “I don’t like CNews, I don’t watch CNews, but what you are doing to them is not normal.” What did this lady hear? In fact, she thinks that the power, the government will constrain, will prevent freedom of expression, will prevent freedom of opinion and that is really not, in any case the role of Arcom. I thank the president of Arcom, Roch-Olivier Maistre, for reclarifying this.
Who is going to decree that one current of thought is on the left, another on the right? Arcom, the State?
Indeed, that would be very dangerous. And I think that this is neither the role of the State nor the role of Arcom. We are going to say that Arcom will improve its consideration lists with personalities who are sometimes financed by political organizations. We are therefore going to improve this so that the plates are again more balanced. But the role of Arcom is not to compose the platforms. It is not to play the role of journalists, it is not to encroach on editorial freedom and even less to decide the program schedule for all the channels.
Let’s take some very concrete examples. Since all the platforms must be balanced, so that all points of view are expressed, we must invite Professor Raoult who tells us that hydroxychloroquine is good for killing Covid? Are we inviting a scientist who doesn’t believe in global warming? We invite someone who tells us that the earth is flat?
The points of view which are largely followed by Arcom are mainly political points of view. So it corresponds more to political trends, to political parties, more than the debate of ideas on subjects like health. However, if these guests say something very stupid, at that point, Arcom can be seized and can sanction the channel.
The case of Philippe de Villiers is a good example. Which box do you put it in? Officially, he is no longer in politics, he is the founding president of Puy du Fou. He can say: “I don’t do politics.”
This is also the limit of the system. I think we don’t have too many doubts about the rather extreme right, extreme right positioning of Philippe de Villiers. So I think that Arcom will go in that direction, but it is not my role to tell Arcom since it is an independent authority. We must also respect this, it is also a guarantee of democracy.
One last question, is CNews a far-right channel?
It is an information channel and moreover the Council of State has clearly recalled that it does not deviate from the rules of information channels, that it respects conventions, that there is a framework of pluralism to improve. But if we look closely at the decision, when Reporters Without Borders told us that it was an opinion channel, the Council of State responded rather than no. It’s up to us to improve the framework with Arcom. We have to be very careful on this subject because the French do not want to be looked down upon if they like to watch CNews and at the same time they do not want to be infantilized. They want us to actually shed light on the program they are watching, the channel they are watching, but there should be no mistake when the French turn on CNews, they know what to expect and they would not appreciate it if we constantly goes into their homes to tell them what is good or what is bad. So the balance is tenuous and it is the role of the commission of inquiry to remind us of this.
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