“For me, this reform is a mystery,” says Sophie Binet

“We know in the private sector that every time we merge two companies, it is to create pools and make budgetary savings,” laments the general secretary of the CGT, Sunday on franceinfo and France Inter.

“For me, this reform is a mystery”said Sunday June 2 on franceinfo and France Inter, Sophie Binet, the general secretary of the CGT, dressed in a black t-shirt bearing the inscription “Radio France in struggle”. She went to the rally against the public broadcasting merger project, in front of the Ministry of Culture on May 23. “Why do we want to engage in a costly merger, complicated from a social point of view, when it works very well?” asks the trade unionist. “We can improve synergies but there is no need to merge for that,” adds Sophie Binet.

This reform desired by the government “worry” the general secretary of the CGT “in a context of budgetary austerity, in a context where the financing of public broadcasting has been destabilized since the license fee has been ended” and “It hasn’t been replaced by anything else.” Then, adds Sophie Binet, “we know in the private sector that each time we merge two companies, it is to pool and make budgetary savings.” It states that this merger, if it comes into force, will result in “a lot of social work”, since it will be necessary to review collective agreements for example. The trade unionist predicts a period of “three or four years of disorganization” And “it costs money”.

Sophie Binet wants to defend the “plurality and the richness of public broadcasting” because “we need France Culture not to do the same thing as France 2”. The government assures that this reform will not harm plurality, but it “doesn’t really trust”.

Sophie Binet signed, with around fifty other personalities, the petition to say “yes, to pluralism and independence of public audiovisual media, no to their merger!” The general secretary of the CGT “calls for people to sign this petition because it is a democratic issue.” She warns because “a few billionaires have decided to transform the French media into a game of Monopoly”.

“It’s a strategy of the far right to take control of the media.”

Sophie Binet, general secretary of the CGT

on franceinfo and France Inter

She takes the example of Vincent Bolloré who “transforms information into opinions and spreads fake news everywhere”. A “strategy which unfortunately works, it’s very worrying”, she concludes to defend “a strong public broadcaster to have independent information”. Launched on May 29, this petition collected more than 35,000 signatures on Sunday midday.