“An error in management”: CNews and France Info mistakenly broadcast images of processions in Albania to illustrate the French demonstrations

It is not only in France where social protest is exploding. Several European countries are experiencing youth mobilization and demonstrations. This played tricks on Saturday on CNews and France Info in their coverage of the French demonstrations of October 24. The two continuous news channels mistakenly showed images of masked demonstrators marching in Tirana to illustrate the Parisian and Lyon processions.

CNews was the first to mix the brushes, early Saturday afternoon. The channel broadcast images of a demonstration in Albania for several minutes, presenting them as a live stream of the events underway at the Porte d’Italie in Paris. "These demonstrators who are in the process of changing their outfit. It's significant. You were in a procession of demonstrators and you now have people who behave like future rioters, future rioters (...) they have just equipped themselves, you saw it live, the helmets, the balaclavas, the masks. We are warming up little by little", deciphers journalist Olivier Benkemoun on set.

The fix will arrive around twenty minutes later. “Earlier you saw teams masking themselves. It wasn't in Paris. We made a mistake in management,” regrets Olivier Benkemoun. And to explain: “You know that there are also demonstrations in Albania and we have live streams reaching us. Sometimes we are given images of Paris, Lyon or Nantes and sometimes there are some that come, like today, from Albania.”

“I would like to apologize on behalf of the editorial staff because the images of the people who were masking themselves came from Albania,” concluded Olivier Benkemoun, who was briefly interrupted by one of his speakers on set who sought to minimize and interjected: “It doesn’t change anything.” “It’s the same technique,” ​​says Olivier Benkemoun.

This technical error was vilified on social networks. Several personalities from LFI were quick to react and called for the intervention of the Arcom regulator.

An hour later, it was France Info's turn to present images taken in Albania, as if coming from Lyon. But their correction arrived much faster, a few minutes later.

"I would like to return to the images that we showed you a few minutes ago with these water cannons. It was following an error on our part. They were not live images from Lyon, but live images from Tirana, in Albania. It was an error on our part. I apologize to you" apologized the presenter of the public channel.