Personalities from the media and cultural world oppose Charles Sapin's column on France Inter

Charles Sapin's detractors are not giving up. In a column written in inclusive writing and published on the Le Parisien website this Saturday afternoon, some 300 personalities from the media and cultural world contest the arrival of the new deputy editorial director of Valeurs Actuelles on the France Inter channel, arguing about “the admissible limits of pluralism in public debate”.

This “pluralism must be deployed within the framework of the republican arc and cannot be confused with complacency towards ideas which represent a danger for democracy and respect for fundamental rights”, brandish the signatories of the platform, marked in the vast majority on the left. There we find the actors Josiane Balasko, Denis Podalydès, Anna Mouglalis, Corinne Masiero, the historians Benjamin Stora and Johann Chapoutot, the writers Annie Ernaux, Leïla Slimani and Virginie Despentes, the photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the designer Jul., the sociologist François Héran, the former footballer Lilian Thuram etc.

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The column on France Inter by the political journalist, previously working for the editorial staff of L'Opinion, Le Figaro and Le Point, should therefore be deleted because France Inter should not "participate in the trivialization" of the ideas put forward by Valeurs Actuelles, they continue.

“Strange defeat”

The values of the weekly would be “in total contradiction with the missions of public radio defined by Parliament: defending social cohesion, the fight against discrimination, the representation of the diversity of origins and cultures”, is indignant in the text, which readily calls Valeurs Actuelles a “showcase and symbol of the liberation of racist speech”.

The authors of the column also consider that the column proposed to Charles Sapin is “a strange defeat” after the Alloncle report which looked into the financing of public broadcasting. “Current Values ​​was particularly distinguished in the violent campaign of denigration and outrageous attacks orchestrated last year against public broadcasting by the extreme right,” they highlight. “For all these reasons, we artists, researchers, academics, magistrates, lawyers, writers, athletes support the employees of Radio France who are demanding the deletion of this editorial from Valeurs Acteurs on France Inter,” punctuates the forum.

France Inter has been in turmoil since the announcement of the arrival of Charles Sapin for a political column every Sunday a few months before the presidential election. Questioned by AFP, the management of France Télévisions stressed that “Charles Sapin comes on Sunday to face Rokhaya Diallo”, an anti-racist activist, for “a debate, a confrontation of different points of view”. In addition, “he occasionally intervenes in “Avant le 20h” like other varied external speakers.

The inter-union of the public group Radio France, of which France Inter is a part, has filed a strike notice for Sunday September 13 and Monday September 14, requesting the withdrawal of its column. Speaking to AFP, the boss of Radio France, Sibyle Veil, defended the choice of giving a voice to “people who don’t think the same thing”.