MEDIA-FRANCE: Protest over Privatisation of TV

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

PARIS, Dec 2 2002 (IPS) - A strike against low budget allocations and moves to privatise television is poised to enter its fourth week.

Employees of the public television channels France 2 and France 3 have been demanding broadcast of programmes produced internally, to maintain their informative and cultural character.

The strike is having a paradoxical effect. It has meant that both channels have been broadcasting a large number of programmes produced in the U.S.

The employees claim that the low budget allocations for next year will affect the quality of the programmes. The government is also preparing privatisation of the television channels still owned by the state, they say.

Public radio and television are financed by a fee paid by the public. This fee goes to the government, which allocates the budget for different stations.

The total budget for public television next year will be 1.5 billion dollars, an increase of only 2 per cent, which barely covers the inflation rate. At the same time, the government has cancelled a four-year plan for development of France Télévisions, the state-owned corporation controlling public channels.

An extension of the strike is decided every day after negotiations with the directors of France Télévisions. Union leaders held talks with Marc Tessier, chief executive officer of France Télévisions last week, without reaching an agreement.

Tessier said he had improved his proposals to the unions. But Patricia Chalumeau, union representative at France Télévisions, rejected this claim. "Tessier’s offers were only a declaration of intentions on the question of the internal programme production, and included nothing on our demands of better salaries and job guarantees for our producers," Chalumeau said.

The strike has support from several media experts, public broadcasting companies, and the left-wing opposition.

Radio France International has suspended its normal programmes and is broadcasting music instead. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former Socialist finance minister, cancelled an interview with France 2 which would have been produced in a private studio, arguing against the risk to national television from privatisation.

"I support good public television," Strauss-Kahn said. "To have a really good programme, the state must allocate the financial means to pay for it. With an annual budget that only grows as much as the inflation rate, it’s impossible to produce good information and cultural programmes."

Strauss-Kahn pointed out that one of the first measures of the new government was to cancel a project launched by the former Socialist government to introduce digital terrestrial television.

Under that project public television was to get six digital terrestrial channels out of 33 new channels. These channels were to include information programmes, and cultural and regional productions. Now, most of the 33 new digital channels will broadcast music and other entertainment programmes, mostly produced abroad. Digital terrestrial television will begin broadcast in December 2004.

Florence Amalou, media expert with the daily Le Monde says the new government’s decisions are a blow to France Télévisions. "To fulfil its basic duties, public television must now launch a major management effort to reduce costs in production and staff," Amalou says. "Additionally, due to cancellation of special allocations, France Télévisions must abandon all development plans based on projects under the former government."

Julien Gray, a Socialist representative in parliament says that a survey of private television programmes between January and May 2002 had revealed how they had helped build Jacques Chirac’s presidential campaign through exaggerated coverage of petty criminality. Chirac centred his electoral campaign on questions of security, accusing former Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin of being "soft on crime".

Chirac, who promised to reinforce police and internal security, won the presidential elections in April and May. A couple of weeks later, his party, the Union for Presidential Majority, obtained a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections.

Gray said private television had gone so far as to invent sensational crime stories, and broadcast them at prime time. Such coverage ended with the parliamentary elections in mid June. "Chirac has a debt to pay," Gray said. "He will pay it with the privatisation of public television."

Private producers have also criticised the new digital terrestrial television project. "We cannot believe that music videos are so attractive to the general public that the government considers necessary to grant so many channels to such programmes," the SPI said in a statement. "Instead, the government could have given more broadcast time to documentaries and other educational programmes."