Turn on the light “on the methods used by businessman Vincent Bolloré in the media landscape”. This is the ambition of the documentary System B, broadcast online and produced by the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) association, which defends press freedom. “In 15 minutes, 11 witnesses describe the mechanism of influence and intimidation put in place by Vincent Bolloré when he takes control of a media outlet or when journalists investigate its industrial activities”, describes RSF. The association alerts: “These practices represent a real danger for press freedom, but also for democracy.” What emerges from this video on the “Bolloré system” ?
The “alignment” of the editorial staff
First lesson: how are “brought into line” the editorial staff of the Bolloré group (among others, the continuous news channel iTélé, now CNews, the encrypted channel Canal + and now Europe 1). Reporters Without Borders returns in particular to the takeover of iTélé in 2015. “At the end of a month of strike, almost all of the editorial staff resigns, iTélé becomes CNews”, recalls the association for the defense of journalists. About this strike, “çlasted what it lasted, so that in the end, there are about a hundred to leave “, remembers Valentine Desjeunes, former general secretary of the editorial staff.
“It’s brutal… No response. If you’re not happy, you go.”
Valentine Desjeunes, former iTélé journalistin the RSF documentary
“Five years later, the scenario is repeated at Europe 1”, underlines RSF, with a writing that empties in the same way. According to media information Days (paid access), the arrival of the Bolloré group in radio ended, in less than six months, with 98 departures, i.e. “half of the workforce”. The antenna is now largely run by journalists from CNews, with a number of programs shown on television and radio. “It’s total brutality”, summarizes the journalist Pascale Clark, who left Europe 1.
Deprogrammed documentaries
Journalistic principles are sidelined, believes journalist Patrick Cohen (formerly Europe 1 and now at France Télévisions). “We are no longer in journalistic production”, he asserts. When Vincent Bolloré took power at Europe 1, “it is not the color of the ideology which frightened us (…) It is the way in which one moved away from the principles of journalism such as Europe 1 practiced it for more than sixty years”, he said again.
Among the methods denounced by the association: censorship. “Shortly after the acquisition of Canal +, a documentary on Crédit Mutuel, a financial partner of the Bolloré group, was canceled”, rewinds RSF. This subject is banned from the air at the last moment, when the Bolloré group had just become the majority shareholder of the encrypted channel, explained on France 2, in 2016, the magazine “Further investigation”.
Several of the journalists who worked on this documentary mention this episode in the video. “We were not ready to imagine the intervention of a big boss in this story”, underlines Nicolas Vescovacci, co-author of the documentary Tax evasion, investigation into Crédit Mutuel.
“This is the story of a group of journalists who believe in their work, who produce a quality survey and who are censored by a big boss live.”
Nicolas Vescovacci, ex-Canal +in “System B”
He adds : “We were all surprised and the result was that we were all fired from Canal +”. Former deputy editor-in-chief of “Special investigation” on the encrypted channel, Jean-Baptiste Rivoire comments: Vincent Bolloré “manages by terror. There is no question of anyone resisting the shareholder’s ukases, and certainly not in terms of information, because information is strategic for him, so journalists are small soldiers “. It completes: “The investigation was deleted (from Canal +) in June 2016. “
Lawsuits against journalists
So much for the management, internally, of the editorial staff. Vincent Bolloré is also working, outside, to increase the number of lawsuits against the media to limit investigations into “its African activities” who “represent a third of the group’s turnover”, reports Reporters Without Borders.
“In 2009, a first investigation on the subject was attacked in court“, recalls RSF. For the journalist of France Inter Benoît Collombat, this date marks a turning point. “From that moment on, the Bolloré group will almost systematically prosecute all journalists, associations or NGOs who will mention these African activities.“, he told RSF.
“There is an abuse of process”, also testifies Tristan Waleckx, journalist at France 2, who had at “total five hearings, five trials”, all “won”. But Vincent Bolloré’s procedural fever, he explains, can spread to all kinds of courts. In addition to the classic defamation complaints, he was also prosecuted before a commercial court (for denigration) and before a court in Cameroon (where the possible penalties for defamation are much higher than those incurred in France).
“One of the peculiarities of Vincent Bolloré is to go through all kinds of procedural tricks to silence you.”
Tristan Waleckx, journalist at France 2in “System B”
“We realized that there were 30 to 40 different journalists, from different media, all sensibilities combined to have been attacked by Vincent Bolloré”, he still describes. A journalist from the online magazine Bastamag, Agnès Rousseau, also prosecuted by the Bolloré group for an investigation, says to have noted with surprise that she was not alone on the dock. The group had also sued individuals, who had “for only wrong”, she sums up, to have put on their blog a hypertext link to the article of Bastamag on the land grabbing in the countries of the South.
“If I count correctly, it’s been almost ten years that I have procedures with Vincent Bolloré. It looks like an almost endless story”, remembers Benoît Collombat. These interminable prosecutions, very costly for the media which are confronted with them, have the effect of dissuading newspapers and TV channels from embarking on this kind of sensitive investigation, deplore the journalists interviewed. “The multiplication of these” gagging procedures “has one and the same objective: to silence journalists”, RSF believes.