A look back at the media treatment of the Lola affair in the face of the positions taken by the far right and in the middle of a week of strikes
The French may lack gas, but what will never fail in the face of a sordid case of the murder of a 12-year-old child is the ability to use it as fuel in the media. On the C8 channel, Cyril Hanouna even celebrated Wednesday with great party favors and general hilarity a record audience for his show TPMPdevoted the day before to this affair Lola, a young blonde girl kidnapped, raped, tortured, murdered in Paris.
The suspect is a visibly unbalanced 24-year-old Algerian woman. ” Should we judge the mad? asked Cyril Hanouna, before answering himself: yes, in the name of the idea that ” society has changed “, According to him, the young woman must immediately be condemned to life imprisonment without any other form of trial. Besides, he said, she has no right to a defense “. That this system denying justice does not exist in any democratic country did not make the host blink. He speaks, he says, on behalf of the French who can’t take it anymore.
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A news item that has become a political affair
Demagogy, populism? No doubt, even if it is not always assumed. On BFM TV, the presenter Bruce Toussaint carefully chapitered the zemmourist Stanislas Rigault who called for a demonstration by making this Lola affair a clear proof of laxity, the Algerian suspect being subject to an obligation to leave the territory which has expired September 21. ” She’s not buried yet, respect the family protested Bruce Toussaint even though Reconquête, Eric Zemmour’s party, had bought the domain name “Manif pour Lola” and before demonstrators shouted ” migrant murderers “. And it’s true that the family called for the ” serenity and calm, far from any political and media agitation “.
Only, why the hell does BFMTV invite the far right on this subject through Stanislas Rigault, Marion Maréchal or Eric Zemmour, if not precisely to make honey of the Lola affair? Of course, it will be objected that this news item has become a political affair since the far right, even the right, has made it the French evil syndrome, the alleged murderer being in an irregular situation for three years. But don’t these debates also overshadow current social issues? In the midst of a strike for wage increases, did the Lola affair deserve to occupy so much media space?
► To read also: Murder of Lola: from emotion to political recovery, in France
In any case, The Parisian preferred to make its front page twice in a row on the ” martyrdom of Lola rather than the transport strike. By the way, according to The worldhe completely censored an interview with Philippe Martinez, the leader of the CGT.