The CGT, CFDT, FO and SNJ unions called for strikes and demonstrations in public broadcasting on Tuesday, June 28, to protest against the abolition of the license fee and recently against a proposed merger of France Télévisions, Radio France and France Media World.
We must indeed distinguish the abolition of the fee which was announced by Emmanuel Macron before the presidential election, and which will be carried out very soon, and a more hypothetical merger project in the public audiovisual sector. On this project, which was exposed by senators LR Roger Karoutchi and Jean-Raymond Hugonet in a recent report, the idea is to take up the old sea serpent of a “French-style BBC” by merging Radio France, France Televisions, France Media World – therefore RFI, France 24 and Monte Carlo Douliya – and the National Audiovisual Institute. The idea is to bring together all the public service newsrooms in a “single structure” or even to develop a “large territorial public media”, by merging the France 3 channel and the France Bleu radio stations under the name of France Médias Régions. .
Against a proposed merger
So, if the calls for a strike by the intersyndicale of France Télévisions or France Médias Monde are aimed at the abolition of the license fee, the national union of journalists at Radio France stands up against the merger project. A project that does not seem at all ruled out by the new Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak. And all the more so as it will not be difficult on this subject to obtain a majority with LR. “ This debate will take placeshe told Le Parisien on Tuesday. We discuss the organization. And we will see if this should be done through a merger or through more flexible methods allowing synergies to be developed. “. It is no longer just a question of discussing multi-year financing or even guarantees to avoid credit cuts. It is a question of seeing what will be the common organization for all public broadcasting, with the exception of Arte and TV5 which depend on international treaties.
The limits of a merger
It’s true that the BBC, even if it’s in a bit of a crisis, is an attractive model, in particular for having a common, and therefore powerful, offer on digital. But the boss of Radio France, Sibyle Veil, also sees limits. While being in favor of more rapprochement between France 3 and France Bleu, as there are on the morning shows, she recalls in Le Figaro that ” it is not Radio France that will help France Télévisions to resist Netflix, nor France Télévisions that will help us against Spotify “. And if the government seeks to bring companies together to save money, this is not necessarily a good calculation since a conglomerate would align social conventions upwards. Finally, for external broadcasting, it is difficult to imagine that a single group would be more likely to preserve the development of France 24 or RFI than a dedicated presidency. What does the foreigner weigh against national priorities?