QFour years after being ousted from Radio France, Mathieu Galet gives his version of a particularly stormy presidency. In an interview with our colleagues from Le Parisien, the former CEO of Radio France (2014-2018) talks about his book Power games, which will be published on May 12, four years after his departure. The man was notably awaiting the verdict of his appeal trial in February 2021. Accused of favoritism when he headed the National Audiovisual Institute (INA), Mathieu Gallet was sentenced in January 2018 to one year in prison with suspended sentence and a fine of 20,000 euros. On appeal, the court opted for a fine of 30,000 euros, but lifted his suspended prison sentence.
In his book, Mathieu Gallet assures that, as soon as he took office, the executive of the time made his life difficult. “With four ministerial years as baggage under Chirac and Sarkozy, I was clearly not the candidate for the left,” he explains. My arrival gift was a reduction of 20 million euros in the license fee allocated to Radio France, out of a budget of 580 million. According to him, these budgetary restrictions played a major role in the “28-day strike” that followed, the longest in the history of the institution. “Minister Pellerin followed me, then played her part to make me bear all the responsibility, just like the Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, who pushed for me to resign,” he adds.
The rumor of his relationship with Macron, “came from the socialists”
Mathieu Gallet also returns in his book to the rumor which lent him a relationship with the current President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron. It was the latter who, at the time, had himself publicly mentioned this rumor to make fun of it during a meeting in 2017, all without warning the boss of Radio France. “I learned about it on Twitter, he tells the Parisian. On the form, I regret that he did not warn me. It would have been more elegant of him. It’s a question of respect. But it was good that he silenced the rumor, especially with humor. »
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“The target was him,” he continues. I was only an instrument to weaken him, when we were never close. I found it disgusting to tell lies to smear a man, a couple. My grandmother even received an e-mail that ensured that photos were coming out. (…) I needed my turn to dismantle this rumor. In my opinion, it came from the Socialists, his own grassroots political family. »