Cyril Hanouna went there in a black shirt and tuxedo jacket.
A Cannes Film Festival outfit.
Vincent Bolloré, in a gray suit on which his rosette as Commander of the Legion of Honor stood out.
Yann Barthès
wore a khaki fleece.
Combat gear?
At the request of the National Rally and at the invitation of Renaissance MP Quentin Bataillon, the host was received Wednesday morning at the National Assembly, to answer questions from the commission of inquiry which examines the allocation and control of frequencies of TNT.
To discover
TV tonight: our selection of the day
Also read: Quentin Bataillon: “The role of Yann Barthès is not to be anti-RN”
For “Quotidien”, the question is in particular whether the tapes of the program (the subjects edited from images of reports for example) are sufficient to compensate for the speaking time that the representatives of the National Rally do not have in plateau.
Since they are not invited.
Here is what you need to remember from this one hour and forty-five minute hearing.
Yann Barthès defends his record
“I am Savoyard and Haut-Savoyard, I am a journalist
,” begins the host in his introductory remarks.
Before recapitulating his television career: “Petit Journal”, the birth of “Quotidien” in 2016. A show, he specifies, which defends values
of “humanism, anti-racism, freedom and equality »
.
In that order.
Yann Barthès also recalls that his show
“had zero slippage, zero sanctions, zero defamation proceedings”
.
Unlike, therefore, its direct competition.
“A day without mentioning Canal + or the names of Cyril Hanouna and Vincent Bolloré is not a good day within this commission…”
Quentin Battalion
Visibly defensive, the journalist adds:
“I am proud of everything we have done, I know it could be used against us but I say it anyway.”
Proud, too, of his
“former colleagues”
who have left for other horizons.
A way of establishing himself as anti-Hanouna, who maintains sometimes conflicting relations with some of his former columnists.
In the middle of his introductory remarks, Yann Barthès adds that the show he preferred to lead had Michel Sardou as a guest.
“You see, it just goes to show...
,” he quips to those who think he couldn't like a right-wing singer.
Tensions with Laurent Bon
Laurent Bon, producer of “Quotidien” through the company Bangumi, completes and explains the difficulty of “infotainment”, this mixture of entertainment and processing of current events.
He returns to the desire for
“pedagogy”
of the show, which wants to fight against
“low-cost news”
, and the presence of political subjects in the program.
While being questioned about the famous tape recorders, Laurent Bon wants to prove to the deputies of the National Rally that they are not absent from the program:
"I would like to address the deputies of the RN..."
Quentin's interruption Bataillon:
“No, sir, we are not specifically addressing a group, and I would like to have answers [on the tape recorders].”
Laurent Bon wants to resume, but the microphone is cut off.
“We are not going to start a debate.
I’m sorry but we have to move forward.”
Also read “You could reduce your salary”: Aurélien Saintoul reframed after a personal attack against Cyril Hanouna
Aurélien Saintoul, the LFI rapporteur of the commission, explains:
“You are here in a commission of inquiry, which is not a place for settling scores”
.
Which does not prevent him from repeatedly questioning those auditioned on Canal +... Quentin Bataillon will have fun later:
“A day without mentioning Canal +, the names of Cyril Hanouna or Vincent Bolloré, it's not a good day in this commission..."
Face-to-face with the RN
Laurent Bon, from the start of the hearing, regrets the attitude of the National Rally towards the broadcast:
“The freedom to inform is respected by everyone, except by the RN, which insists on prohibiting our journalists access to their public meetings or meetings.
This boycott, which is considered undemocratic, was accompanied on several occasions by physical violence.
It is therefore an ironic moment that we are given to experience this morning.
We are here at the request of the RN, while the RN has been boycotting and discrediting our teams for years.
Also read “There are no journalists at “Quotidien””: Marine Le Pen attacks Yann Barthès and his team
MP Thomas Ménage responded this way:
“I thank you for being present, even if I understood that you were not all happy to be here this morning.
It would have been inconceivable not to invite the only program which assumes not to invite the entire political spectrum (...) I would like to remind you that the TNT channels belong to the French.
Indirectly you choose to exclude 13 million French people.
You hide behind the fact that you respect speaking times (notably through the tape recorders, Editor's note), but is this on the same level as an exchange on set?
Thomas Ménage compares this situation to a
“trial which would take place without adversarial arguments
”.
Julien Bellver, political journalist from “Quotidien” responds:
“Indeed, we do not receive people on set but elected officials are present in all our columns and you are interviewed on the ground.
We strictly respect the pluralism defined by Arcom.
Maybe tomorrow the Council of State will change its rules.
In which case we will apply them.”
Thomas Ménage seeks to know if representatives of the RN will be invited in the event that journalists from “Quotidien” obtain accreditations for their meetings.
Laurent Bon answers in the negative: one cannot condition the other.
The
“list of all the violence”
suffered by his teams visibly prevents this.
He also confirms that if the law evolves and requires them to be invited, they will
“obviously”
do so and adds:
“We do not demonize the RN, (...) we continue to send to cover all the events, we do not have not let go of the RN.”
Yann Barthès asks:
“Why do you want to come on a show that you don’t like?”
Thomas Ménage regrets for his part:
“You did not answer my question: do you consider that these will be exchanges of the same quality if we are not invited on set?”
Humor or slippage?
Another interesting sequence, the question of
“slippages”
on the air.
One of the main topics of debate during Cyril Hanouna's hearing.
Yann Barthès considers that he has never done so, based on the absence of warnings or sanctions from Arcom.
Less convinced, LFI deputy Aurélien Saintoul evokes a video from “Quotidien”, famous on social networks, of a French supporter mocked for his approximate English.
Then the case of two influencers, derided for their speeches during the period of pension reform.
Apologies had been made, assure those interviewed who recall the purely humorous aim of the sequence.
Aurélien Saintoul then questions the
“lightness”
of the Arcom.
“Who is able to say what is funny or not? Earlier, I forgot my last sheet, you can put it on your networks, it will be humorous for you, perhaps it will hurt me,”
retorts Yann Barthès.
A somewhat rhetorical process.
No doubt he also suspected that this sequence would give rise to coverage on social networks.
Cyril Hanouna has already had a field day:
“Jean-Marc without Jeff Panacloc
,” he joked about X, comparing Barthès to a puppet deprived of its prompter.