Radio France keeps its head. In office since April 2018, Sibyle Veil was reappointed Monday to the presidency of the public group with the ambition of opening it up more to the youngest.
“Very honored by the decision of the Arcom college and very happy to continue with all the employees of Radio France for this magnificent house of radio, music and service. 5 more years, what a joy”, she reacted on Twitter after the announcement of her renewal. She won against two candidates: journalist Florent Chatain and Maïa Wirgin, secretary general of the Court of Auditors.
Record audiences
At 45, Sibyle Veil was the favorite, on the strength of a first term marked by record audiences – 15.4 million daily listeners on average last year – with two stations, France Inter and France Info, among the three radios the most listened to in the country. This appointment, however, comes in a particular context: that of financial uncertainty after the abolition of the audiovisual license fee, campaign promise of Emmanuel Macron recorded in early August.
Before the Arcom on Monday, the enarque who joined the group in 2015, defended a project entitled “New generations”. “Young people bring about revolutions in usage and cultural revolutions that end up imposing themselves. Which means that if we manage to win this battle, we will have succeeded in winning all the others, ”argued the leader.
Towards an “audio library of knowledge”
At the heart of this strategy, Radio France’s digital platform, which it intends to transform into a free and modern “audio library of knowledge”, in particular by bringing together “public service audio content”. A process initiated since 2020 with Arte, France Télévisions, France Médias Monde, the National Audiovisual Institute (Ina), specified Sibyle Veil, indicating that she is also thinking with these last three public groups to develop France Info as “a social media “.
“With our alliance, we have the ability to be a real strike force, a kind of anti-fakenews commando”. “We have to put the package on social networks: today on TikTok, tomorrow on the future network that we do not yet know”, she continued. “We have to go and fight false information where it multiplies on its territory and for that (…) we must build the social power of our information media”.
At ENA with Emmanuel Macron
Coming from the same promotion at the ENA as Emmanuel Macron, Sibyle Veil was adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy at the Élysée, then director of transformation at the AP-HP, before entering Radio France in 2015. She was the first woman president of Radio France since Michèle Cotta in 1981. During her first term, she set out to reduce costs there, in particular by deploying a vast plan of job cuts. This led to a historic strike movement launched in November 2019.