Concerned about the US presidential election and the role of billionaire tycoons who financially control many of the country’s media outlets, colleague and friend Alison Mutler, director of Universul.net, asked me how France protects press freedom and press pluralism.
In truth, France is an exception in Europe and around the world for helping media pluralism.
In 2023, the French government’s public aid to the press totaled €204.7 million, including €22.7 million for pluralism, €133 million for transport and broadcasting aid, and €19.1 million in aid for investment and media modernization.
It was the Liberation of France against Nazi Germany in June 1944 that established this aid to the press to preserve the diversity of expression of all newspapers, from the monarchist right to the communist left that made up General de Gaulle’s government of National Unity.
It was necessary to regulate the confiscation of the assets of the media that had collaborated with the Germans, but also to fairly distribute the shortage of newsprint of the time among all the daily newspapers that emerged from the Resistance, including the clandestine daily Combat, directed by the great Albert Camus, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.
These ordinances of June 1944 on aid for pluralism and freedom of the press still persist today in 2024, 80 years later.
Of course, de Gaulle, as a great French patriot, made sure that the communists did not dominate the entire French press, thanks to his ally, the CGT book union, which controlled the printing presses of the French press.
In the years that followed, large investors took control of several media outlets in the 1970s, including Robert Hersant, owner of Paris-Normandie, and then of the prestigious daily Le Figaro.
From 1981 and the election of François Mitterrand, the country’s first socialist president, the state monopoly on TV and radio was abolished.
During the 1980s, until 2010, the privatization of public radio and TV stations multiplied with the TV channels Canal Plus or M6.
Today, in 2024, the major French media groups are owned by billionaires in luxury or communication, such as Bernard Arnault, boss of the LVMH group, the world’s 3rd richest person (€131 billion) and owner of the economic news group Challenges and the daily newspaper L’Opinion.
Conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré bought up the media group Canal +. He owns the non-stop news channel CNews, which has openly supported Trump in recent weeks.
The Bettencourt family, owner of the global cosmetics giant L’Oreal, co-owner of L’Opinion.
Billionaire François Pinault of the luxury group Kering (37 billion euros), which owns the major news weekly Le Point and other magazines.
The DASSAULT family (20 billion euros), a major French aircraft manufacturer, for the Rafale and manufacturer of weapons, missiles and others, owner of the major conservative daily Le Figaro and other magazines.
Patrick Drahi, a businessman with three nationalities, French, Israeli and Portuguese, who bailed out the left-wing daily Libération, then created a media empire with the radio and TV BFM and RMC.
Yet, in the face of these billionaires, the French administration continues to finance the plurality of the country’s press, indeed it guarantees the PLURALITY of the press.
In 2023, though the Ministry of Culture and Communication, the French state financed iall French media, from the smallest to the largest outlet, such as the left-wing daily Libération, the Catholic La Croix and the communist L’Humanité.
What is astonishing is that this aid to press pluralism is not the subject of any controversy in France!
Press freedom can be guaranteed by billionaire tycoons or the state. So, when will a regulator, at European or global level, decide to maintain a free and pluralistic press?
The French model, though fragile, is an example worth considering.
