Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot announced on Friday that she had requested a review of the status of a "
political and general information
" (IPG) site enjoyed by the online media FranceSoir, accused for several months of relaying conspiratorial theses.
Read also: The inconvenient truth about conspiracy theories
"
I have requested that the IPG certificate (political and general information) issued to the FranceSoir online press service, whose term is in principle September 2022, be reexamined, in order to verify as of now that its granting conditions are correct. always respected,
”said the minister on Twitter, without further details.
"False information" and "conspiracy theories"
The so-called IPG statute gives entitlement, for online publications, to certain tax advantages and potential aid from the Strategic Fund for the Development of the Press (FSDP).
Its award criteria are specified in a 2009 decree.
The announcement of the Minister of Culture comes as the site, which uses the brand of the late daily France-Soir, has found new notoriety since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but has been criticized for some months of disseminating false information and relaying conspiracy theories, in particular for having promoted the documentary "Hold-Up".
Former journalists of the daily France-Soir and the National Union of Journalists even launched in January a petition on the Change.org site, addressed to the minister, in which they deem "
inadmissible
" that this site "
could spread with impunity false information and conspiratorial theses dangerous for society
”, and demand“
the immediate cessation of these publications by all legal or other means that are necessary
”.
