CNews petition to remove channel passes 1 million signatures before Tuesday commission vote

A petition that gathered momentum

A petition calling for CNews to be removed from French audiovisual broadcasting passed one million signatures on Sunday, 8 November. It was posted on the website of the National Assembly and launched in June by a private individual. It compares the channel, which belongs to the Canal+ group controlled by Vincent Bolloré, to a propaganda machine and to the American network Fox News. Support grew after the racist attack in Trappes on 23 October, and the petition reached 500,000 signatures on Monday, 2 November.

The petition also says CNews has accumulated 27 reminders to order from Arcom, the audiovisual regulator, and 630,000 euros in fines since 2019, a record it calls unmatched in French audiovisual broadcasting. These figures are the petitioners' own claims.

What the Assembly must decide

Crossing the 500,000 threshold prompted a meeting of the bureau of the National Assembly's culture committee on Tuesday, 3 November. The full committee meets again at 13:00 on Tuesday, 10 November, to vote on one of two options: shelving the petition or organising a debate in the chamber. The choice follows the Assembly's rules. The articles do not say which option the committee will pick. Of the three earlier petitions to pass 500,000 signatures, only the one against the Duplomb law led to a floor debate, and it had gathered more than two million signatures when it closed. The other two were set aside. In April the Laws committee dropped a petition against the Yadan bill on antisemitism, judging that a debate would duplicate the bill's parliamentary examination. In July deputies shelved a petition that had passed 700,000 signatures, opposing a bill that creates a presumption of legitimate use of firearms by law enforcement, using the same argument.

Criticism from inside Canal+

On Friday, 6 November, the +Libres union of Canal+, the group to which CNews belongs, deplored "les dérives" of the channel in a statement. The union said it backs CNews staff every day as part of its duty to defend employees, but that this support should not be read as approval of the channel's direction. It called on the group's management to take its responsibilities. The union put its position plainly.

“The current editorial line of CNews matches neither the values we defend nor those the Canal+ group should, in our view, embody.”

Background to the channel

CNews sits in the group controlled by the conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré. The channel is regularly accused of promoting far-right opinions and themes, a charge it disputes, saying it defends freedom of expression. The regulator Arcom has sanctioned it several times. Most of the petition's support came after the Trappes attack, and the committee's decision is due on Tuesday, 10 November.