Some consensuses are more difficult to achieve than others. “Do we still all agree that the Putin regime is a dictatorship?” asks Eric Morillot in a video posted this October 12 on the YouTube channel of TV Libertés. At his side, his four friends protest, seated in front of cherry tomatoes and glasses of wine. “Oh no, I don’t agree!, exclaims Alexis Poulin, editorial writer on Sud Radio and regular speaker on RT. It’s an authoritarian regime, but you have checks and balances, an Assembly, elections […] Look at the BFM set, do you think you have a political opposition on a BFM set? It’s an authoritarian regime, yes […] But what is Macron doing?” Eric Morillot, flabbergasted, insists: “Would you go so far as to compare Macron to Poutine?” Poulin continues, sure of himself: “But completely! In his practice of power… We can clearly see that in the trend, there is a jealousy of what Putin has done.”
Another debater soon comes to support him. This is Greg Tabibian, “comedian and political commentator”, creator of the YouTube channel “I’m not happy TV”. “I want to fully recognize that Putin is a dictator… But if we recognize that Macron is too!” exclaims, all smiles, the videographer with 336,000 subscribers. Morillot reaches out to the other side of the screen, visibly sure of finding support from Didier Maïsto, the former boss of Sud Radio. “[…] Comparison is not right, but I said here a few weeks before the first round that if Macron is elected, we will be in soft fascism.” Lost. Morillot empty-handed: “But we can’t say that he doesn’t was not democratically elected…” Immediately, Greg Tabibian chokes: “No, he was not democratically elected!”
This scene takes place on YouTube, on the ultra-conservative Web TV channel TV Libertés, founded in early 2014 – which now prefers to use its abbreviation, TVL. At its head, two former frontist executives, Martial Bild and Philippe Milliau. The latter, who chairs the channel, was for a long time in the Bloc identitaire, before being expelled from it in 2012. The first, who is the director, was thirty years at the FN and presented his flagship program for a long time, Bistro Liberties. Since mid-September, the program has had a facelift and has a new host – in this case, Eric Morillot. It also renewed some of its columnists and guests. Since the start of the new version, three guests have tried to fulfill this promise: Juan Branco, presented as the lawyer for the yellow vests and the members of the freedom convoy; the figure of the French conspiracy Idriss Aberkane; and finally the host of Sud Radio André Bercoff, known for his protrusions eyeing the right of the right. The Web TV of “reinformation” no longer only dredges the reactionaries. In recent months, she has clearly set her sights on the vast field of French conspirators and “antisystems”. A turning point of which Bistro Liberties is the showcase: since its launch, its numbers have reached around 500,000 views each. A success for the channel with 581,000 subscribers, many of whose productions do not exceed 100,000 views.
Gramscian logic
The show, which takes up all the codes of the talk show in public – spectators regularly come to applaud the outrageous projections of guests and columnists – announces the color from its summary: “Free and non-conformist debate”. A program “which is in line with legendary programs such as Right of reply by Michel Polac or Tonight or never by Frédéric Taddeï. These are two models for me”, explains Eric Morillot in writing. Very classic references, for a channel that is nevertheless classified on the far right. “TV Libertés has always had the desire to play with the codes of the mainstream. We see it in their daily television news, or even in the logo, which takes up the colors of LCI”, analyzes the far-left lawyer Nicolas Gardères. For two years, he was one of the “members” of Bistro Libertés, where he carried out an “ethnographic study” from which he drew a book Travels of a lawyer in the land of infrequents (Ed. of the Observatory, 2019). “They call it their ‘Gramscian’ logic, aimed at regaining the ground of information. They imply that the mainstream media is lying, and that they have to re-inform people. For that, they try to extricate themselves from folklore of the far right.”
Alongside Morillot, four speakers vary from week to week. In addition to Alexis Poulin, Didier Maïsto and Greg Tabibian, lawyer Pierre Gentillet, regular columnist for CNews and member of the board of the Franco-Russian Dialogue association, is a regular speaker on the show. This is also the case for Stella Kamnga, author of France is no longer France (Ed. de Verbe haut, 2022) and columnist at big mouths on RMC, or even Mike Borowski, former host of the far-right blog “The left killed me”. The latest to arrive is Rémy Watremez, who chronicles the news every day on his YouTube channel Juste Milieu (291,000 subscribers). A way to capitalize on the audience of each of these personalities, to reach a new audience. “With these columnists and guests, TVL is trying to expand its audience. Invite Branco, and you talk to the herd of yellow vests, Aberkane, and you address another segment of the population. Bercoff? Yet another, “continues Nicolas Garderes.
“Elite Corruption” and “Soft Totalitarianism”
According to the presentations made at the beginning of each video, these speakers are chosen for their plurality. Each video is also an opportunity to ensure the multiplicity of points of view presented. On the one hand, Pierre Gentillet and Mike Boroswki, former members of the UMP known for their closeness to the extreme right, or even Stella Kamnga, who defines herself as proudly “right-wing” on her Instagram account, are supposed to represent the point more conservative view on set. On the other, Alexis Poulin, former participant in the Media, close to La France insoumise, or Didier Maïsto, of the yellow vests, who publicly supported to Jean-Luc Mélenchon during the last presidential election. Harder to identify, Greg Tabibian, who defines himself as “from the left“, but that Arrêt sur images ranks in the fachosphere, or Rémy Watremez, who quotes Tabibian or the videographer Tatiana Ventôse into models.
What do all these columnists have in common? The same as the one they share with each of the show’s guests: a green criticism of “the mainstream” in general and “the elites” in particular. “Many personalities come to TVL to find a non-conformist space where they can express themselves while taking their time, writes Martial Bild. totalitarianism, however mild.” Here, we claim his “outspokenness”: “No jargon, all opinions will have their place, a friendly greeting to Arcom and Gafam”, slips Eric Morillot by way of introduction. We also often find ourselves dreaming of an insurrection of the people, of which the yellow vests would have been only the prelude. Juan Branco, author of the anti-Macron pamphlet Dusk, a “truth investigation by Juan Branco behind the scenes of power”, is quite at ease there. Regularly approved by the chroniclers, he is alarmed by “the aphasia of the French population”, poses as a whistleblower in the face of the power in place and denounces “the corruption of the elite”.
“Obama and Clinton holding the strings”
Everyone’s disagreements and obsessions revolve around this climax, with speakers regularly complaining about the media refusing to receive them. “On TV Libertés, freedom of speech is total, like what I had tried to instil on Sud Radio, explains Didier Maïsto. There are no self-proclaimed experts who prevent you from developing your point of view. You are not called a conspirator or a pro-Putin every two sentences.”
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is also a subject covered extensively in the show. But despite the desire for nuance and plurality put forward by Didier Maïsto, most of the reasoning held draws in the same direction: often pro-Russian, they are at least anti-American and hostile to the European Union. On the set, the economic sanctions imposed on Russia are presented in mid-September as useless, if not deadly. “Russia has collapsed… under the weight of its own wealth!” exclaims Tabibian. André Bercoff, invited to speak on the subject, unfolds his analysis there: “Biden is senile. Behind it is Obama and Clinton who hold the strings.”
Media compared to the Luftwaffe
Strong approval on the set. According to its speakers, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is above all an American war. “The United States needed to find its next conflict. [après l’Afghanistan]this allows them to shoot Europe and save the dollar”, assures Alexis Poulin, after having declared for a few minutes rather that “the European countries are in the pay of the Americans”. In a second debate (“Putin facing the values of the West”), the videographer continues with a well-known argument in pro-Putin circles: recognizing the Russian invasion, while presenting it as a “reaction” from Moscow to provocations from Washington. “Putin is the aggressor, but without the aggressive policy of the United States and its allies, what happened might not have happened,” he said. In this game of false equivalences, the French executive is also widely compared to Russian power. Thus, for Rémy Watremez “the staging [du pouvoir] of Emmanuel Macron is not very different” [de celle de Vladimir Poutine].
Usually better known for his controversial outings than for his measure, André Bercoff then comes to play the role of the moderate, recalling that “we cannot put on the same level what we have been able to experience in France or elsewhere, with what we live in Russia”. Immediate protests from Greg Tabibian: “It depends! In the Covid period, they [l’exécutif français] do not hesitate to behave like a dictatorship!” The videographer illustrates here one of the aspects of TVL’s “anti-system” concerns: the health crisis and, above all, anti-vaccines. It is for this reason that he was invited Idriss Aberkane, one of their most popular spokespersons. In his debate, the essayist does not hesitate to compare the media to the “Luftwaffe”, the air force of Nazi Germany. enjoy the ability to turn any bad guy into a good guy and any good guy into a bad guy. Like Professor Raoult!” he asserts. A few minutes later, he launched into a long monologue against L’Express, a regular target of his anger since the publication of several articles criticizing the shortcuts and inconsistencies of his training in personal development.”By using individuals different from those usually heard by your audience, you will bring in people who, without having an extreme right culture, will be sensitive to the themes”, resumes Nicolas Gardères. there is a real project.TV Liberté is a militant tool for intellectual combat.
The old identity moons of TV Libertés are obviously still there. To the question “Should immigrants be distributed in the countryside?” Mike Borowski did not hesitate to evoke a “genocide of the French people”. “Who can deny the great replacement today?” was alarmed Pierre Gentillet, reacting to Emmanuel Macron’s proposal, on September 15, to absorb the arrivals of migrants by distributing them in particular in “rural spaces”. “If the government intends to repopulate these areas tomorrow, I, who live in Paris, will lose what is a fallback base,” he said. Statements preceded by a hypothesis from Greg Tabibian, suggesting that the proposal may have been formulated by the head of state “to create conflict”. “The same way he said he wanted to piss off the unvaccinated, he wants to piss off people in the countryside who didn’t vote for him. There is a desire to piss people off!” he advanced. In the absence of the convergence of struggles, that of conspiracy?