There will indeed be a fine. The Council of State rejected the requests of Eric Zemmour and CNews to cancel the fine of 200,000 euros imposed on the channel by the media regulator for “incitement to hatred” and “to violence” after remarks by the far-right polemicist. At the heart of the dispute, a sanction taken in March 2021 by the CSA, which became Arcom, after a diatribe by Eric Zemmour in the program Facing the newson unaccompanied migrant minors, whom he had described as “thieves”, “murderers” and “rapists”.
These same remarks had earned him in January a conviction for incitement to hatred and a fine of 10,000 euros from the Paris Criminal Court. Eric Zemmour, now leader of the far-right Reconquête! party, also appealed the decision. Regarding the sanction of the CSA, the highest administrative court in France considered its appeal inadmissible.
Several shortcomings on the part of CNews
Even if he is “the author of the remarks in question and even though this sanction would, according to him, harm his reputation, he is not admissible to ask for its cancellation, and his request must be rejected for this motive”, specifies the Council of State in a decision taken on Tuesday. Even failure of the appeal for CNews, the court considering that “the disputed sanction is well founded”.
“On the one hand, on the disregard by the CNews channel of its obligation not to broadcast programs inciting hatred and not to encourage discriminatory behavior” and “on the other hand, on a breach of its obligation to control of the antenna”, she motivates.
The fine of 200,000 euros, which has so far not been settled according to a source familiar with the matter, will contribute to the budget of the National Center for Cinema and Moving Image (CNC).