Public broadcasting: a worrying reform

France Télévisions with all its channels, including France 2, Radio France, with all of its stations, perhaps RFI and France 24, grouped today in France Médias Monde. And finally, Ina, the National Audiovisual Institute. What if tomorrow, all these companies formed only one, called France Médias? The government wants to do this merger of public broadcasting and it wants to do it quickly. The project was even to be discussed on Thursday May 23 in the National Assembly. Examination ultimately postponed due, officially, to an overly busy agenda.

This merger project is contested. First politically from the left. It is then contested internally, by many employees. A strike took place on Thursday, May 23, as well as a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Culture, where we see in the reform more the return of ORTF, the state television of General de Gaulle, which a French-style BBC, the British model praised by the government. The bill’s timetable provides for the creation of France Médias from January 1 and the effective merger of the companies in 2026. The fate of France 24 and RFI, in or out of the new group, has not yet been decided. Public financing of the audiovisual sector would benefit from new guarantees, promises the government. 16,000 employees are affected by this reform.