Will Marie-Christine Saragosse spend the next five years at the head of France Médias Monde? At 62, the leader since 2012 of the public group which brings together the international news channel continuously (in four languages) France 24, Radio France internationale RFI (sixteen languages) and the Arabic-speaking radio station Monte-Carlo Doualiya will open the ball for suitors at the post on Monday, during a hearing at Arcom (ex-CSA).
This was followed by the former executive of the French media development agency CFI, David Hivet, and the director of special operations at France Télévisions and assistant to the Francophonie at the Paris City Hall, Arnaud Gatcha, then, the next day, the entrepreneur and former adviser on digital tools for the group La République en Marche at the National Assembly, Pierre-Etienne Pommier, and the former deputy editor of France 24, Sylvain Attal.
It is a tormented company that will have to be directed, for the person that Arcom will choose to appoint on January 23 at the latest. The November 2021 crisis at France 24, which gave rise to a scathing motion of no confidence in five members of management and a six-day strike, does not yet seem completely over. Schedules still suffer from a chronic lack of staff, while the question of the status of foreign correspondents, considered as service providers and paid by subcontracting companies, remains unanswered.
” Lack of courage “
“Internally, there are those who hope for the renewal of Marie-Christine Saragosse for fear of what could happen in the event of a change, and those who fear that we will continue with the same team”explains anonymously a journalist, who describes “a gigantic internal malaise”. RFI is not immune to some confusion. There too, a motion of no confidence was voted in February 2022, the editorial staff denying its management its ability to “apply and enforce the ethical principles that govern all media”. The house ethics texts, common to those of France 24, had been updated.
However, they do not prevent breaches. Thus, on December 14, a journalist from Morocco appeared on the Arabic-language channel of France 24 wearing a jersey from the kingdom’s team and in the unprecedented absence of the on-screen overlay of the map of the country from which it intervened. Established by the UN, it does not include Western Sahara, a territory that the Moroccan power claims. Asked by The world on this absence, the chain invokes a “circumstances precaution”and “security reasons” towards the journalist.
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