Arcom: No need to classify stakeholders to assess pluralism, says the Council of State
To control pluralism on radio and television, the audiovisual regulator, Arcom, must "assess the diversity of expression globally" on air, and not classify each speaker, the Council of State ruled on Friday, July 4.
The highest administrative court has thus ruled in favor of Arcom, which last year rejected requests for more detailed monitoring from four associations. "Arcom must make a global assessment of the diversity of expression, without having to qualify or classify program participants with regard to currents of thought and opinion," the Council of State stated in its decision.
This principle does not call into question "the counting of speaking time of political figures, particularly during election periods" .
This is the first time that the Council of State has been asked to rule on the new rules put in place by Arcom, following a decision by the highest court in February 2024, which caused a stir. Arcom was then ordered to strengthen its control over the news channel CNews , owned by conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré. The NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) initiated this procedure, considering that CNews "has become an opinion media" , which the company denies.
In the summer, the regulator set new rules applying to all audiovisual media: it planned to sanction any "manifest and lasting imbalance" in the expression of opinions on each radio and television station.
The Council of State validated this principle on Friday, specifying that the assessment of respect for pluralism should be carried out, "except in special circumstances" , over a "sufficiently long" period and should focus in particular on "information programmes and programmes contributing to information" .
The decision was initiated by Cercle Droit et Liberté, the Observatoire du Journalisme, La Courte Échelle – Journalisme, and the Association for the Defense of Fundamental Freedoms, which had asked Arcom to formally order nine channels and five radio stations outside the Bolloré sphere to modify the list of speakers, in order to give currents of thought airtime proportional to their weight in French society. Arcom rejected their requests, as did the Council of State, which these associations had appealed to, on Friday.
La Croıx
