The petition calling for the closure of the CNews channel has collected more than a million signatures on the National Assembly website

A new symbolic milestone reached. The petition on the National Assembly website calling to “remove CNews from French broadcasting” collected more than a million signatures on the evening of Sunday, November 8. According to the rules of the Assembly, a debate in the hemicycle can be organized on a report relating to a petition when it exceeds 500,000 signatures. For this, however, a commission must first decide to classify or examine it, then drawing up this report.

The National Assembly's petitions platform was launched in 2020, following the major national debate set up after the yellow vest crisis. So far, the petition against the Duplomb law was the only one to have exceeded the threshold of one million signatures. The passing of the threshold of 500,000 signatures on November 2 triggered a meeting of the office of the Cultural Affairs Committee, which is responsible for the subject. Its president, Alexandre Portier (LR), told AFP that he was going to be "proposed rapporteur" so that the commission examines "in the coming days the classification [without further action] or the organization of a debate following the petition".

The RN denounces a “totalitarian temptation”

The Canal+ group channel is regularly accused of promoting far-right opinions and themes, which it denies, claiming to defend freedom of expression. The media, owned by ultraconservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré, has also received the support of right-wing and far-right personalities.

Friday, Jordan Bardella accused La France insoumise of "totalitarian temptation" by wanting to "shut down" the CNews channel and "prevent" the National Rally from expressing itself. “We have a political movement which, it’s true, can qualify for the second round of the presidential election and which does not like France,” said the head of the RN on CNews.