From April 15, and as before each election, TV and radio stations will be required to respect a principle of fairness in the treatment of political forces before the June 9 vote, the audiovisual and media regulator recalled this Friday. digital, Arcom.
A period extended by two weeks compared to usual “because the campaign has already largely started”, specifies the regulatory authority.
In this period of reinforced control of speaking times, the sovereignist Philippe de Villiers, who co-hosts “Face à Philippe de Villiers” every week on CNews, a program rebroadcast on Europe 1, will see his speaking time counted with the various right-wing in the coming days.
According to Arcom, Philippe de Villiers had supported Éric Zemmour during the last presidential campaign and his time had been counted before stepping back a little.
“He returned from the fall and we made it known that Arcom reserved the right to count him if he intervened in the political field,” specified Roch-Olivier Maistre, the president of the authority of regulation.
“We cannot force a political group” to intervene on set
Concerning the regular boycott by many left-wing elected officials, particularly from France Insoumise (LFI) and environmentalists by the CNews channel, Arcom has decided to “relieve” the channel of the constraint of balancing the speaking time of environmentalists. on tray.
But it will have to respect its obligation of pluralism by broadcasting, for example, extracts from meetings.
“We cannot force a political group” to intervene on set and the channel is therefore “unburdened”, noted the president of Arcom.
Philippe de Villiers will not be the only one to see his speaking time counted.
The regulator is in the process of updating the list of personalities to be included and their political classification.
Thus, the former Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot, who speaks on BFMTV should also be concerned.
More broadly, Arcom, which received, on Thursday, the managers of the main channels, radios and platforms, recalled the principle of pluralism and underlined "the issue of reliability of information, taking into account the risks of manipulation of the information and foreign interference.
In particular, she recommended a series of good practices to platforms, in line with the European Commission.
In particular, the period of electoral silence (“reserve”), the day before the election.
A principle that also applies to online sites.