A general call for a strike. The public broadcasting unions (France Télévisions, Radio France, France Médias Monde and the INA) are calling to mobilize on Thursday May 23 and Friday May 24 against the reform of public broadcasting, voted on in the Senate in June 2023 but largely revised in committee at the Assembly in mid-May. The deputies must take up this matter in the next few days in the hemicycle. The subject of a rapprochement, or even a merger of public media, recurrent since the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, has taken shape quickly since the new Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, took office in January .
1What is public broadcasting?
In the vast landscape of public broadcasting, France Télévisions is the heavyweight. It brings together the channels France 2, France 3 (and its regional antennas), France 4 and France 5, the news channel franceinfo and the site franceinfo.fr (in collaboration with Radio France), the Outre-mer network La 1ère and the digital platform france.tv. Alongside it, Radio France includes the general stations France Inter and franceinfo, the thematic stations France Culture, France Musique, FIP and Mouv’, the local network France Bleu (in full merger with France 3), as well as orchestras and choirs.
France Médias Monde (FMM) is the group responsible for France’s external audiovisual sector. It brings together the France 24 news channel (in French, English, Arabic and Spanish), radio RFI (in French and 16 other languages) and the Arabic radio Monte Carlo Doualiya (MCD).
Finally, the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) is responsible for archiving images and sounds from television and radio. In recent years, it has also become a media in its own right, by exploiting its archives. Public broadcasting also includes the TV channels TV5 Monde and Arte, but they are not affected by the current reform, since they have an international status.
2 What does the reform project provide for?
The reform on which the deputies have to decide is based on a bill from a centrist Union senator, Laurent Lafon, adopted by the Senate in June 2023. In this version of the text, France Télévisions, Radio France, France Médias Monde and the INA were to be grouped, on January 1, 2025, into a holding company called France Médias. A structure with the objective of “define strategic directions” of the four companies and “to ensure the coherence and complementarity of their program offerings”.
Shelved after its adoption in the Senate, the proposal was unearthed by the executive at the beginning of 2024, and here it is now included on the agenda of the Assembly, with an important modification. A government amendment, adopted by the Assembly’s Cultural Affairs Committee, makes the holding company a transitional stage, before a merger of the four companies on January 1, 2026. The giant company would then have a budget of four billion euros and some 16,000 employees. Its CEO would be “appointed for five years by Arcom”the audiovisual regulatory authority – whose president is appointed by the Elysée –, as is already the case today for most public audiovisual entities.
In this project, the fate of France Médias Monde does not appear to be decided. During the examination of the reform project in committee, Rachida Dati advocated the integration of this entity into the new whole. But during the examination in committee, the deputies spoke out against the presence of FMM in the holding. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stéphane Séjourné, then affirmed that the government was ultimately in favor of its exclusion from the single company. The discussions could nevertheless be tight, the right being on the contrary attached to its inclusion.
3 What would be the point of a merger?
We must come together to be stronger in the face of increased competition from social networks, private media and American platforms like Netflix, insist the promoters of the merger. The already existing synergies between the different companies are “insufficient both in terms of editorial partnerships and support functions”, details the report of the Assembly’s Cultural Affairs Committee. In particular, the merger must make it possible to “deploy a unified and powerful digital strategy, regroup editorial resources and pave the way for more innovation in the production and development of new formats to take into account all audiences and all uses”. These arguments did not find favor in the eyes of five former ministers of Culture, who testified before the deputies in the spring and warned about a reform which they consider costly, ineffective and beside the issues of the moment, recalls La Chaîne Parlementaire .
For the right, the reform is also an opportunity to propose new savings on the public broadcasting budget, already subject to several cuts in recent years. “I don’t see why the audiovisual sector in France wouldn’t do like the French, at a time when we have 3.100 billion in debt”thus estimated on franceinfo Bruno Retailleau, leader of LR senators and member of the Senate Cultural Affairs Committee. A speech that contrasts with that of the majority. “It’s not about saving money”thus assures the report of the Assembly committee, emphasizing that “public broadcasting works well”.
4 What do the companies concerned think?
The directions of the different entities are shared. The president of France Télévisions, Delphine Ernotte Cunci, supports the holding and then merger project. If the project comes to fruition, she is seen as a logical candidate for the presidency of this new company. His counterpart on Radio France, Sibyle Veil, is in favor of a holding company, but opposed to a merger. The president of France Médias Monde, Marie-Christine Zaragosse, wishes to preserve the “specificity” of public broadcasting internationally, whatever the solution chosen. Finally, the president of the INA, Laurent Vallet, is in favor of the holding company as well as the merger.
The sector’s union organizations, on the other hand, are opposed to any merger, in particular the scenario of a merger. Strike notices for Thursday May 23 and Friday May 24 have been filed in the four public companies, where there are fears for resources, jobs and editorial independence. “At a time when public broadcasting is fully playing its role in the face of private media controlled by a handful of billionaires, why engage it in a merger that promises to be long, complex, anxiety-inducing for employees, and without any real editorial objective? “ask the France Télévisions unions. “Risk is above all democratic”also point out more than a thousand Radio France employees in a forum at World. “We fear for the independence of your public service media when we appoint, for this superstructure, a single CEO, with full powers.”
The unions are instead demanding “the rapid establishment, no later than autumn 2024, of a sustainable and dynamic financing system for the public audiovisual service”which guarantees its “independence”. Since the removal of the fee in 2022, the sector has been financed by a fraction of VAT, according to a provisional mechanism. MPs Quentin Bataillon (Renaissance) and Jean-Jacques Gaultier (LR) are also working on another piece of legislation to ensure long-term funding for public broadcasting, via a “levy on revenue” from the state budget.
5What is the balance of power in the Assembly on this text?
If it is supported by the right and the far right in Parliament, the executive encounters resistance in its own camp, the MoDem deputies having declared themselves opposed to a merger. “A holding company can be an interesting tool” but “the merger with a date set like that, quite close, seems premature and above all hasty”defends Erwan Balanant, spokesperson for the group, on franceinfo.
The left, for its part, is up against the very project of holding company. “Its implementation would be the culmination of a process of denigration and financial weakening of public broadcasting carried out methodically since the arrival of Emmanuel Macron to power”consider for example the deputies of La France insoumise (LFI), recalling that the public media can congratulate themselves on good audiences, and therefore do not need to be “reinforced”.