“If we wanted to have as many people as possible, it would have been more practical to do it, as usual, in Paris, or in a large regional metropolis, in TGV France…” Christophe Deloire dreamed of popular mobilization around the General Information Conference (EGI), the event intended to strengthen citizens’ confidence in their information, launched at the beginning of October. The general delegate of the EGI, also secretary general of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), would have preferred to bring together more than a hundred people including a class of high school students, a few retirees and journalists for his first “agora”, Wednesday November 29 in Auxerre (Yonne). Because it is with the legitimacy acquired through dozens of debates and working groups, in which the French are invited to participate, that the operation must lead, in June 2024, to proposals “of a legislative, regulatory, budgetary, fiscal and other nature”as he likes to remind us.
Mr. Deloire came close to defending the ambitious project entrusted to him by the President of the Republic to a wider audience the next day. Between 600 and 700 people (1,200 including those who were remotely) responded to the call from around a hundred independent media, trade union organizations and collectives (Informing is not a crime, Profession: freelancer, the Association anti-racist and racialized journalists, etc.), Thursday November 30, gathered on the occasion parallel EGIs organized by the Free Press Fund (FPL). “Let’s free information from political powers, hate media and billionaires”promised the event poster.
Initially invited to speak on the stage of Espace Reuilly in 12e district of Paris, Christophe Deloire saw his speech canceled before the start of the evening. ” Lack of time “but not only: for François Bonnet, the president of the FPL, the “Official Estates General”Or “Macron’s Estates General”, It is “the power that claims to reform its counter-power” – or nonsense – he declared on stage.
Testimonies and debates
Challenged by independent media (Mediapart, The Breaking Wave, Splann!, StreetPress, Marsactu, At office, Politis, Reporterre, Mediaetc.) on the one hand, the conductor of the EGI is also by the figure of CNews Christine Kelly. “They want to silence us”complained, on November 11 at the Salle Gaveau, in Paris, the presenter who had invited the editorial director of Sunday newspaper, Geoffroy Lejeune, the ultraconservative essayist Mathieu Bock-Côté or even the BFM-TV editorialist Christophe Barbier at his paid conference. Like her, the two hundred members of the assembly were convinced that “those who do journalism [entendre : les médias du groupe de Vincent Bolloré] are accused of making fake news ». The others would be ” from the left “according to the recurring joke of the evening.
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