Rémi Jacob, with AFP
France Télévisions was sentenced Thursday by the Paris Criminal Court to a suspended fine of 1,500 euros for the broadcast in the television news of France 3 Corse of pictures of the aggression of Yvan Colonna, in prison in March 2022.
France Télévisions was sentenced Thursday by the Paris Criminal Court to a suspended fine of 1,500 euros for the broadcast in the television news of France 3 Corse of pictures of the aggression of Yvan Colonna, in prison in March 2022. The report had been broadcast fifteen days after his assault in Arles prison – where he was serving a life sentence for the assassination of the prefect Claude Erignac – by Franck Elong Abé, a prisoner convicted in a terrorist case.
The report would not have “contribution” in terms of information
The report showed screenshots from the prison video surveillance, in a “raw and non-contextualized” manner, “in an obvious search for sensationalism”, estimated the court in its decision. If Yvan Colonna was not “identifiable” in the images, “the evocative force” of the shots, aided by the editing of the subject, “is no less real”, also says the decision, which judges that the report has no “contribution” in terms of information. The report had been put online on the France 3 site but had been withdrawn after about thirty minutes.
France Télévisions, via its boss Delphine Ernotte, the editorial director of France 3 Corse and the two authors of the subject appeared on March 15 for “publication of criminal proceedings before their reading in public hearing” or complicity in this offense .
France Télévisions and the two journalists who authored the subject were sentenced to a suspended fine of 1,500 euros. They will also have to pay a total of 9,000 euros in damages to the relatives of the Corsican activist who were civil parties.
The editorial director of France 3 Corse was released. Contacted by AFP, France Télévisions did not wish to react. Me Marie-Laure Barré, lawyer for the widow and one of the victim’s sons, welcomed this conviction, recalling that the “viewing of these images had been very violent” for her clients.