Between his TV and radio shows, his fights to defend French heritage and while waiting to find him for Eurovision, Stéphane Bern was interviewed this Wednesday by BFM Marseille on one of the key proposals of Emmanuel Macron’s first meeting. : the abolition of the fee. Indeed, on the move to Poissy, the president, candidate for his own succession, had proposed to dispense with this tax dedicated to public broadcasting.
A sum of €138 which concerns a large part of the French and which is used (among other things) to pay for public service channels, on television or radio (France 2, France 3, France 5, France Info, Radio France. ..). A very important investment for the presenter of Secrets of history, favorable to the royalty. “I make no secret of always being in favor of the television license fee. I’m not sure that’s a very good idea [de la supprimer]“.
“This is what guarantees the independence of public service television and radio“, he argued, as several journalists had done before him. And it is also the assurance of seeing certain programs that we do not see elsewhere, such as the Victories of Classical Music ceremony. “It is only on the public service that we can see it (…) It is the nobility of the public service to offer the general public access to this culture“.
Responding to these fears, government spokesman Gabriel Attal defended the controversial measure, explaining that funding would not be cut, simply that the tax would be removed. “What we are proposing to do away with is not the financing, it is the tool, that is to say the license fee, that is to say making 28 million French people pay 138 euros, what whatever their income“, he explained on France Inter, without further details.
This Monday, in Poissy, Emmanuel Macron had hammered this measure which is debating, explaining that he would give “obviously the necessary guarantees of independence“. As a reminder, he is not the only one who wants to remove the fee: Eric Zemmour, Valérie Pécresse and Marine Le Pen are also proposing it.