Arcom wants to avoid any slippage in the media on the situation in the Middle East. The regulator will thus investigate at least two sequences linked to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, he confirmed on Tuesday, without specifying the number of associated referrals.
At the heart of these procedures: a column by comedian Guillaume Meurice on France Inter denounced as anti-Semitic, and comments on BFMTV by Caroline Fourest, accused of relativizing the deaths of Palestinian children.
The director of France Inter expresses her “discomfort”
The Audiovisual and Digital Regulatory Authority (Arcom) “is contacted following a column broadcast on France Inter” on Sunday in Charline Vanhoenacker’s show and “will investigate this sequence”, she said. announced on kind of Nazi but without foreskin.”
The director of France Inter, Adèle Van Reeth, expressed her “discomfort” judging “this choice of words (…) particularly unwelcome”, in a response to the Radio France mediator, contacted by listeners. According to her, “this sentence is in no way representative of the daily work of the France Inter editorial team, which strives to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a (…) balanced manner, nor of the editorial line of the channel which fight against anti-Semitism, racism and all forms of discrimination.
“For many, a limit has been crossed: not that of law, which remains to be established, but that of respect and dignity,” added Adèle Van Reeth, who specifies having reminded Guillaume Meurice that she was “guarantor (…) of the comments” that are made on the radio. Among other reactions, the president of the Jewish Scouts of France, Jérémie Haddad, castigated the “reactions of the plateau (of France Inter) which is laughing out loud”.
Mathilde Panot shocked by Caroline Fourest’s comments
In the other sequence reported to Arcom after its broadcast Monday on BFMTV, the essayist Caroline Fourest explains that “we cannot”, according to her, “compare the fact of having deliberately killed children by attacking like “Hamas did, and killing children unintentionally like Israel does.”
These remarks “prioritizing Palestinian and Israeli civilian deaths are shocking, dangerous, racist”, condemned the leader of LFI deputies Mathilde Panot on X, announcing to seize Arcom. The latter confirmed having been captured on this sequence which she will also “instruct”.
If breaches are noted on the part of broadcasters, Arcom may, depending on their seriousness, issue a reminder of the regulations, a warning or a formal notice which, in the event of repeated breaches, may precede a sanction.