Arcom fines CNews a total of 80,000 euros for “failures” to meet its obligations

The media regulator has imposed two fines of 60,000 and 20,000 euros on the channel. The first concerns a debate in which guests declared that “immigration kills”, without any reaction from the host.

Media regulator Arcom announced on Wednesday, July 10, that it was fining the news channel CNews 60,000 and 20,000 euros for “failures” to its obligations. The first violation was taken during a debate on the immigration bill, during which guests declared that “immigration kills”, without any reaction from the host.

“It emerges from the viewing report of the program ‘La Matinale Week-End’ broadcast on December 10, 2023 that during a debate devoted to the immigration bill, then a sequence relating to the National Rally, two guests declared ‘immigration kills’, without any reaction from the host or the other people present on set”, wrote the instance in its decision.

“The use by two guests of the phrase ‘immigration kills’ is likely to represent people of immigrant origin, as a whole, as a deadly risk factor. Such stigmatization, which reduces immigrants to the rank of dangerous people (…), is likely to incite hatred towards them because of their race, nationality or ethnic origin and to encourage discriminatory behavior towards them because of their race, nationality or origin.”he added.

The other segment in question concerned the news program “Punchline Été”, which reported that July 2023 had been the hottest month on record. During this segment, one of the speakers disputed the human influence on global warming, stating in particular: “Anthropogenic global warming is a lie, a scam, at some point we will have to put things scientifically.”

These sanctions come in a delicate context for CNews, regularly criticized by Arcom, while its frequency, like 14 others of the TNT, is put back into play for 2025. The hearing of the channel, owned by the conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré, will be held on Monday.

On two occasions, in May and June, CNews took BFMTV’s place as the leading continuous news channel (in terms of market share), which had never happened before. For its part, C8, a channel of the Canal+ group, has received a total of more than 7.5 million euros in fines in recent years due to the controversies caused by its star, the controversial host-producer Cyril Hanouna.