From the afternoon of Saturday October 17, while the demonstrations were still in progress, and the violence surrounding these demonstrations had begun, the first critical emails reached the mediator. This type of criticism had already appeared about the high school movement before October 17.
At the same time, the viewer relations department receives the same type of messages. Most, favorable to the demonstrators, criticize the coverage for an “amalgamation” between demonstrators and thugs, an alleged desire to scare citizen viewers.
An amalgamation of demonstrators and violent individuals?
These emails continue to reach us beyond the weekend, like this one about “1 p.m.” on October 19 and “8 p.m.” the day before:
Hello, NO, contrary to what the presenter said, the devastation of 2000 businesses is not 'the result of weekend demonstrations' but that of 'weekend looting'. I'm 71 years old, I took part in the demonstration on Saturday in Paris and I didn't attend or participate in any of that, and I was outraged on Saturday evening by the cynicism of a lot of media who claimed that the looting and damage were 'overshadowing'. The importance of the demonstrations while broadcasting more images of the looting than of the demonstrations.
Françoise (Paris)
Emails to the France Télévisions mediator
Mélanie Taravant, presenter of "13 Heures", said exactly: "Result of this weekend's demonstrations: more than 2000 shops ransacked." It is indeed an ambiguous shortcut, which editorial director Julien Duperray recognizes: "Every word counts", he writes to us, "and we are well aware of it. We cannot say that 'the toll of 2000 vandalized businesses is the result of the weekend's demonstrations'. That is an imprecision. The toll of 2000 vandalized businesses is the result of many hours of violence and looting."
It is all the more regrettable since the coverage, contrary to the feelings of several email authors, did not equate the demonstrators with troublemakers.
"(...) This type of treatment leads to an amalgamation between demonstrators and thugs-looters, which harms the messages conveyed by the former (...)."
Rémi (Paris)
Email to the France Télévisions mediator
The editorial team took care of this, in the reporting angles chosen from "8 p.m." on Saturday October 17, for example, by devoting a sequence to the reactions of demonstrators to the violence in several cities. Such reactions were also broadcast in “20 Heures” on Sunday October 18. Another example: Laurent Delahousse speaks of “real processions” to distinguish demonstrations from violence and looting. Launching a subject on the origin of the said violence, he said: “calls on social networks which are not linked to this mobilization”. Later, launching a retrospective topic on the two days of violence, he contextualizes it in these terms: "Let us not forget that yesterday was first and foremost a rally against the high cost of living bringing together 550,000 people all over France...". A little later he himself comments on a risk of putting "the demands in the background". This did not prevent demonstrators and viewers from not recognizing themselves in the reports of these days and from accusing the information from France Télévisions.
(...) Your editorial choices, the angles of your subjects do not reflect what is happening for the majority of those who are mobilizing. If you don't talk about everything, we might start to think that it's a choice and that partial information is indeed partial information.
Cécile (Paris)
Email to the France Télévisions mediator
A deliberately anxiety-provoking offer of information?
This is the second family of protests, often linked to the first. Here is the rest of the message from Rémi, from Paris:
[Your treatment] does not allow (...) to realize the reality of the facts, in this case, a very large demonstration in Paris, perfectly peaceful on the one hand, and groups of thugs-looters independent of the demonstration and in other sectors of the capital on the other hand. The airtime devoted to the thugs-looters was 14 minutes, compared to 2 minutes for the demonstrators (...) This differential treatment harms the intelligibility of the demonstrators' messages, and in fact, prevents them from getting the political treatment they deserve, which can only exacerbate extremism.
Rémi (Paris)
Email to the France Télévisions mediator
The figures cited by Rémi are accurate. Other emails are much more vehement. They position themselves on the moral question:
Your reactions are the most abject sensationalism. I am very disappointed with the public service which joins the continuous news channels: highlighting the damage caused by thugs, minimizing the demands and the words of high school students (second-class citizens???) contempt?? Scandalous
Patricia (Brest)
Email to the France Télévisions mediator
On October 17, I interviewed the most experienced reporters. They are unanimous: they had not experienced such a level of violence since the clashes on the sidelines of one of the yellow vest demonstrations in Paris. In my opinion, the arithmetic criterion alone cannot dictate the balance of a hedge. The rare level of violence justifies this proportion. It is not, moreover, representative of all the coverage of the social movement which began in September.
“We constantly question ourselves in real time about the way in which we report these events with the aim of taking stock of the facts,” says Julien Duperray. “Telling on the one hand how hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in the streets and for what reasons, on the other hand telling how in many cases the violence and looting took place. One does not prevent the other and one does not cancel the other. For us it is a question of finding the right journalistic balance in relation to the facts.”
Yes, when a town hall burns, when thousands of businesses are looted, when there are hundreds of injured, we seize this extraordinary news which in fact takes an important place in the story of the day. But we also question the profile of those arrested, the strategy of the police, the anticipation of the government. And above all, we continue to give a voice to those who mobilize calmly.
Julien Duperray
Director of the national editorial staff of France Télévisions
There is no question of doubting the good faith of the demonstrators who wrote to us. However, a protester cannot be in several places at the same time. The reporters are numerous and mobile; they cross their sources. The editorial staff can thus assess the extent of a mass phenomenon in an informed manner. Furthermore, a viewer rarely sees all the editions of France Télévisions. It is therefore difficult to evaluate the entire coverage. However, the emails that prompted this article only cover two days of this coverage.
franceinfo channel 16 has also been criticized for its treatment of the violence:
Good evening, I am shocked by the media coverage of October 17 and the appearance of the set that I saw. (...) Your journalists on set recalled sometimes vehemently and several times that images of peaceful demonstrations were shown as much as images of violence. This is false; the airtime devoted to it was entirely devoted to violence.
Jean (Paris)
Email to the France Télévisions mediator
Nicolas Marut, director of franceinfo channel 16, responds: "Very early on Saturday, acts of violence broke out, well before the official start of the Parisian demonstration. Actions not limited to Paris since the Lyon tourist office was set on fire, a sequence which was shown on the air shortly before 3 p.m. These clashes and significant damage foreshadowed the importance of the political crisis that would result. These actions were analyzed and contextualized on set, the image never being left without editorial support. Despite this context, [the channel] very regularly showed the official République – Place de Clichy procession, with a reporter in the demonstration, and throughout the afternoon, interventions from the demonstrators recalling their demands on set, journalists from the channel took great care to report the reality on the ground in its entirety. example]: 'Parades in calm, clashes in Paris, Lyon and Marseille' In the evening, the debates on stage focused on the consequences of the events, still ongoing in Paris, and on the comments of the political class, but also emphasized the demands of the demonstrators and the protests against the 'high cost of living'.
An “immersion” report that does not pass
In the "20 hours" of October 18, a long report almost without comment at the heart of the violence also earned disapproving emails to the mediation:
The 8 p.m. news has just broadcast a "raw document" on yesterday's events which showed a flow of images without commentary, except for a few sentences from time to time (...) [This document] is called raw because it offers no sustained commentary, no description, no analysis of what is shown. This is not journalism: what is the idea behind such a broadcast at 8 p.m.? The effect of such a document (...) is to place spectators before a flood of violent and therefore distressing images, before which we do not know who is being filmed, when, where.
Caroline (Meudon)
Email to the France Télévisions mediator
The broadcast of this report also raised questions internally. At a time when social networks often broadcast images without sufficient context, should the news do the same? “As we regularly do in the magazine section of the newspaper, after 8:40 p.m., we offered a long format report with different writing,” explains Philippe Corbé, director of information at France Télévisions.
"We should have been clearer, by contextualizing more, he explains. Laurent Delahousse made it clear that it was an immersion document, but we should have been more readable in the banner [which accompanies the subject] and given more contextual information in the editing and the commentary. The beginning of the subject clearly distinguished two elements: 'two parallel stories have come together in the streets of Paris. A peaceful demonstration for education and against life dear' and, further, 'chaotic scenes of pure violence.' The idea was not to mix the two, on the contrary, but to clearly distinguish these 'two stories in parallel'. The subject also underlined that the union and political parade, with many young people, took place 'in a good-natured atmosphere, surrounded by people demonstrating peacefully'. But that was not enough, we can only regret it, and we should have been more precise in the editing, contextualization and commentary so that there was no confusion."
