The motion of no confidence voted Thursday against the director of information of France Télévisions Laurent Guimier is "
an important signal which must be taken into account
", wrote the president of the public group Delphine Ernotte in a message to the editorial staff on Friday.
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"
I have entrusted Laurent Guimier and the information management team with the task of proposing and implementing a new method, an organization and concrete actions as quickly as possible to meet these expectations
", emphasizes Delphine Ernotte in this email consulted by AFP.
"
They will have my full support in this new approach which should make it possible to quickly restore confidence within the editorial staff
", she continues.
This motion of no confidence was voted on Thursday evening by a large majority by the national newsrooms of France Télévisions: 79.52% of the votes cast, with a turnout of 71.09% across all four newsrooms (France 2, France 3 National, the web editorial staff of franceinfo.fr and the continuous news editorial staff France Info:TV).
The catalyst was the question of the non-renewal of certain fixed-term contracts, but according to internal sources, the motion is explained more broadly by “
complicated relations
” between Laurent Guimier and the editorial staff.
A director who is not present enough
According to concordant testimonies, many journalists consider that he is too little present.
Many also criticize him for having kept a low profile in front of the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron when the latter, according to them, snubbed requests from France Télévisions for the benefit of other editorial staff.
The vote of the motion of no confidence is “
the testimony of real difficulties in a context of growing tensions between the editorial requirements which are ours on the one hand;
our organization and its resources on the other hand
”, estimates Delphine Ernotte in her internal message.
“
There is therefore an urgent need to collectively find solutions to meet your expectations and improve the performance of our missions, such as restoring the serenity of the teams within the management of the
“, she concludes.
Laurent Guimier has been director of information at France Télévisions since September 2020. In April 2016, journalists at France Télévisions also adopted a motion of no confidence against then-information director Michel Field.
He had finally resigned a year later, when a second motion of no confidence was announced.
