PARIS: It is the news network that claims to explain to viewers what the conventional means of “waking up” will not do. He says he is fighting for endangered freedom of expression, although he has been fined by the government broadcasting regulator for inciting racial hatred.
This is CNews, which in four short years became the number 1 news network in France for the first time in May giving a megaphone to far-right politicians, opponents of the fight against climate change and a great advocate profile of the discredited idea of using hydroxychloroquine anti-malarial drug as a cure for Covid-19.
The model is Fox News, including the chatter and incendiary cultural issues, and it has worked. Owned by French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, former chairman of the Vivendi media group, CNews is increasingly helping to shape the national debate, especially on prominent issues such as crime, immigration and the place of Islam in France. he hopes it will influence next year’s presidential election.
The extraordinary influence and controversial role of the network in France became even clearer this week, when its most popular host was forced out of the air because he is considered a likely candidate for the presidency, and with real chances of increasing the race.
In a country where media confidence is very low, CNews emerged at a time of particular discontent, following the 2018 Yellow Vest protests, which, like the election of Donald J. Trump in the United States , provoked much search for souls among journalists. Misunderstood by traditional news organizations, the protests reinforced the impression of an out-of-contact media centered in Paris and opened a new era of sometimes violent clashes between journalists and people on the streets where they reported.
“People were fed up with political fatigue and in France, for the last 30, 40 years, there was news in the hands of newspapers, television and newspapers that said the same thing,” said Serge Nedjar, head of CNews, explaining how the its channel positioned itself in a nation with four exclusive news networks.
Unlike its competitors, CNews focused on “analysis and debate” on issues that Mr Nedjar said mattered more to the French but had been ignored or insufficiently covered by the media: “crime, insecurity, immigration “.
He added: “We created this network by telling ourselves that we talk about everything, including explosive issues.”
Mr Nedjar said he was unaware of Fox News when CNews was created and separated the comparisons. “There’s the word‘ news ’and much better if it works like Fox News,” he said, referring to the name of his network. “I’m sorry, Fox News works really well there.”
But critics say the problem is not the choice of CNews topics, but the way it treats them. They say their emphasis on opinion, often backed up with few reports or fact-checking, propagates popular biases and deepens splits in a polarized society.
“It’s a way of taking the worst of public opinion: what you feel in the local bar, that you can no longer say anything, that you are not allowed to talk,” said Alexis Lévrier, media historian at the University of Reims .
During the week of the return after the summer holidays, CNews struck a familiar formula for attracting racial and religious divisions in response to a plan by President Emmanuel Macron to revitalize Marseille, France’s second-largest city and, after decades of immigration from Africa, one of its more diverse.
On CNews, a hostess and her guests, including a national far-right spokesman, repeatedly predicted the failure of the plan. Guests described Marseille as a lawless place of “enclaves” that no longer felt like France, as the residents were people of “non-European” origin.
Pascal Praud, one of CNews’ main hosts, mocked Mr Macron for splashing his speech in Marseilles with 10-cent words like “thaumaturge” and “palimpsest”.
Nedjar said CNews favored personalities who “are normal people” and “are not pretentious.”
He added: “They don’t think they are Victor Hugo.”
The network’s top figure, Eric Zemmour, has become a national figure and is the subject of two rulings by the government regulator. He does not hesitate to push the theory of the white nationalist conspiracy on the supposed great replacement of the established population by newcomers from Africa. It has inspired killings of white supremacists from Texas to New Zealand and has been averted even by far-right politicians like Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally.
“You have a French, white, Christian, Greco-Roman culture that is being replaced by a“ Maghreb, African and mostly Muslim population, ”Zemmour said two weeks ago.
In two resolutions on previous comments by Mr Zemmour, the government’s broadcast program regulator put CNews on formal notice and in March fined it 200,000 euros, about $ 236,000, for speeches inciting racial hatred , the first time a news channel has faced this sanction. Since June, the regulator – in charge of ensuring the political balance in broadcasting – has also twice warned CNews that it has not provided a diversity of views or that it has given an unfair share of broadcast time to the Ral National far-right.
Mr Nedjar said last week that Mr Zemmour was exercising his freedom of expression and that the network was challenging the resolutions. But it was Zemmour’s flirtation with the presidential candidacy that forced the network to take action on Monday. After the regulator ordered to limit Mr. Zemmour’s airtime because he could be considered a political actor, CNews announced that he would stop appearing on his regular show.
CNews’s origins began in 2015, when Mr Bolloré took control of the Canal Plus broadcast network, including his difficult left-wing news channel, i-Télé. Two years later, the channel was reborn as CNews.
In 2018, the Yellow Vest movement, led by French people on the geographical and economic periphery, surprised the media and the political establishment by surprise. Journalists came to be seen as opponents and became the target of protesters, said Vincent Giret, who oversees the news on Radio France, the public broadcaster.
“Today there is a part of France that doesn’t feel represented when you listen to or look at the media,” Giret said.
At a recent press conference, Giret said that Radio France would emphasize journalism rooted in facts, neutrality and information, to avoid damaging the “democratic debate”.
“We avoid, because we thought about it, presenting ourselves as anti-CNews,” he said.
But CNews’ success, according to media experts, has influenced its rivals, including Radio France, which has just launched a segment of opinion on its France Inter station.
“Our direct competitors, who spent their time saying they wouldn’t do any CNews, just do CNews,” Nedjar said.
During the summer, the power of CNews seemed to grow when its billionaire owner, Mr. Bolloré, took control of a radio station, Europe 1. Some CNews hosts are doing dual service in Europe 1.
Patrick Cohen, a veteran journalist, was one of many who left Europe 1, fearing it would become a radio version of CNews.
“The raison d’être of these channels is not to seek the truth, but to seek controversy,” Cohen said. “Their role is to create divisions.”
But Cohen said he believed CNews’ influence on politics and next year’s election would be limited. While it was the best-rated news channel in May, its audience share was lower than that of traditional networks, he said.
Others say that, like Fox News two decades earlier, CNews filled a political vacuum in the media landscape and pushed French conservatives to the right.
“It is due in part to the Fox News effect and is in the process of completely changing the French political landscape,” said Julia Cagé, a Sciences Po economist specializing in media.
At the start of Mr Macron’s five-year presidency, his aides oversaw BFM, a CNN-like news channel that slipped behind CNews in ratings for the first time in May, Mr Lévrier said. ‘media historian. Now, he said, they were hooked on CNews. But BFM remains at the forefront of the overall throughout the season.
Two years ago, some politicians (from the left, such as the Greens, or from Mr Macron’s centrist party) vowed never to appear on CNews. Many have gravitated silently to their studies.
Despite being cautious in asserting the power of his network, Mr Nedjar said that, on important issues, “CNews has managed to change the lines slightly, modestly”. He said he believed the network was making some government officials nervous because they thought it might help push a candidate like Mrs Le Pen to power.
“I think they are concerned about the influence of CNews, which I tell you is not huge,” Nedjar said. “But they are concerned about CNews’ influence a few months before the election.”
Leontine Gallois has provided reports.