The CSA is rife.
In a decision rendered this Thursday, the Wise Men announced that they had decided to sanction CNews up to 200,000 euros.
At issue: Eric Zemmour's comments on unaccompanied foreign minors.
On September 29, 2020, the polemicist of “Face à l'Info” had qualified these young people as “thieves”, “murderers” and “rapists”.
And had added, at first: “All, all, all.
"Words" likely to incite hatred towards this population, for reasons of nationality "and which" convey many particularly infamous stereotypes ", writes the Superior Council of Audiovisual (CSA) in its decision.
"No sufficiently marked reaction was given to these statements by the people present on the set", also add the Wise Men, who heard representatives of Canal + as well as the journalist Christine Kelly, presenter of "Face à l'Info" .
Aggravating element for the CSA: "The emission was diffused with a slight delay" but "this sequence was diffused without any modification".
VIDEO. Eric Zemmour targeted by an investigation after his comments on unaccompanied minors
Seized last October, the group's ethics committee had already pointed out "a breach of honesty" on the part of Eric Zemmour, who showed "excess" with remarks "contrary to the charter group ethics ”.
On the other hand, the attitude of Christine Kelly vis-a-vis Eric Zemmour - whereas the journalist had relaunched several times the columnist who had ended up qualifying his remarks - had been judged "irreproachable".
“You have to watch the entire sequence,” insists a member of the news channel even today.
At the time, the ethics committee of Canal + had come to this conclusion: "Faced with the news" "cannot continue to be broadcast in its current form".
Except that nothing has changed since.
Canal + intends to appeal to the Council of State
Contacted, the Canal + group will challenge this sanction, deemed "disproportionate".
"We open all avenues of appeal," says Gérald-Brice Viret, general manager of the antennas and programs of the encrypted channel.
In other words, the group led by Vincent Bolloré, for whom "this decision contravenes the principle of freedom of expression", will appeal to the Council of State.
Internally, it's really the cold shower.
A few days ago, CNews management was even "confident" about the outcome of this affair.
Some noted that relations with Roch Olivier Maistre, at the head of the CSA, were "more serene than at the time of Olivier Schrameck".
Others found that the conclusions of the independent reporter, commissioned by the audiovisual gendarme, were "rather lenient".
According to our information, he had requested that a simple press release be broadcast on the air without providing for financial penalties.
To justify the large fine, which goes well beyond the 45,000 euros envisaged concerning the criminal proceedings also in progress, the CSA bases its decision on a formal notice, pronounced at the end of 2019. At the time, they are other words of Eric Zemmour, considering himself "on the side of General Bugeaud"
(Editor's note: appointed in 1840 Governor General of Algeria where his troops practiced the scorched earth policy)
, which had already earned a reframing of the part of the Sages.
A decision that Canal + had also decided to challenge before the Council of State, deeming it "unjustified" and "contrary to the principles of freedom of expression as defined by the European Court of Human Rights and therefore constitutive abuse of power ”.
A case still under investigation.
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Last September, the same Council of State had already rejected the request for annulment of a fine of 3 million euros pronounced by the CSA against C8, after a hoax deemed homophobic in the program "TPMP Baba Hotline ”broadcast in May 2017. A record financial penalty.