Part IV - The reform agenda for recovered sovereignty
13 - Media and audiovisual landscape
Freedom of the press is a pillar of every sovereign nation. But this freedom cannot be reduced to the absence of formal censorship: it presupposes real independence, assumed editorial responsibility, and a healthy relationship between the media, political power, and the public.
The French media landscape is going through a profound structural crisis. A large part of the media, both public and private, has progressively moved away from its primary function of informing in favor of a logic of ideological reproduction, political connivance, and financial dependence. This drift has fed a massive public distrust, for which the media bear direct responsibility. Editorial choices tend to become uniform: not through spontaneous convergence, but through adherence to a common doxa often disconnected from the real opinion of the country. This homogeneity of discourse, far from enlightening public debate, impoverishes it and fuels the suspicion of manipulation.
The crisis is aggravated by murky ties - sometimes assumed, often concealed - between political figures and journalists: crossed careers, networks of influence, reciprocal dependencies. When a journalist maintains direct undeclared political ties, or when a political figure uses the media apparatus as a relay of influence, the confusion of roles becomes incompatible with the general interest. In these cases, the separation must be clear: either the journalist renounces their function, or the politician withdraws from the arena.
Finally, the massive dependence of the media on public subsidies constitutes a major democratic anomaly. While audiences have durably collapsed, public money has come to compensate for the absence of public trust, artificially keeping alive structures disconnected from their readership. Public media cumulate the defects: endogamy with political power, marked ideological orientation, and tax-based financing. When the money is public, the requirement of pluralism and restraint should be absolute. It no longer is.
The principles of refoundation
The refoundation rests on five non-negotiable principles: near-total freedom of expression restored, independence from the State as the primary condition of the credibility of information, assumption of editorial lines - absolute neutrality is a fiction, ideological concealment is manipulation -, economic accountability to the public and not to the taxpayer, and the end of structural subsidies that distort the information market and sustain out-of-touch media.
Targeted subsidies are maintained, but solely to finance precise, defined, and time-limited projects, within a strict framework preventing any influence on content or editorial line. They do not under any circumstances constitute a content commission nor a tool of editorial alignment. The objective is not to control the media: it is to restore their real freedom, even at the cost of confronting them with the public's verdict.
Freedom of expression
Sovereign France establishes freedom of expression as a founding and near-absolute principle. The criminalization of speech is the open door to all political abuses: history testifies to this sufficiently. In the age of social networks, making an idea invisible no longer works: it spreads underground, outside any contradictory debate, and emerges from it strengthened. Public contradictory debate is infinitely more effective than prohibition for dismantling ideas deemed false or dangerous.
This freedom has only two limits. The first is direct and explicit incitement to physical violence against an identified person. The response is not preventive censorship: it is the immediate protection of the target and the swift prosecution of the perpetrator. The content remains online as evidence of the offense during the procedure. No administrative authority can order a withdrawal prior to judgment: only the judicial judge intervenes, after publication, never before.
The second limit is the disclosure of national defense secrets on legal actions of the State. This is high treason: the source of the leak and the discloser are prosecuted. The investigation is entrusted to the reformed Senate, whose composition includes magistrates who guarantee legal objectivity and have access to classified documents within a secure sovereign framework. At the conclusion of the investigation, the Senate refers to the criminal jurisdiction for judgment. This second limit itself has an exception: if the classified information reveals an illegal action of the State, its discloser is a protected whistleblower. The State cannot use defense secrecy to cover its own crimes. Throughout the investigation, the presumed discloser benefits from the presumption of innocence and is not prosecuted.
Defamation falls under ordinary civil law: the defamer answers for their actions before a court, proves their assertions or is convicted, and the honor of the victim is publicly restored. This is infinitely more satisfying than a trial for having uttered prohibited words: one judges the substance, not the form.
Public media
The scope of public broadcasting is strictly refocused. A single national public channel is maintained with a clear mission: information, culture, civic education, national cohesion. It raises the general level of audiovisual output, dragged downward by the logic of ratings and permanent entertainment. Intellectual rigor, accuracy of information, depth of analysis, respect for the viewer: culturally accessible but ambitious programs, valorization of national history, literature, sciences, arts, critical thinking, and contradictory debate. It plays a driving role in promoting French audiovisual production - fiction, documentaries, cinema, animation - by supporting works that contribute to cultural transmission, understanding of the country, and its influence.
A public regional channel is maintained to guarantee territorial anchoring and the representation of local realities: concrete diversity of the country, territories, trades, savoir-faire, local cultures, regional languages, economic and social initiatives. It restores a direct link between citizens and their territory, beyond the metropolises and central media circles.
A sovereign international channel, born from the merger of France 24 and RFI, carries the voice of France beyond our borders. It replaces a fragmented arrangement with sometimes contradictory editorial logics and insufficient resources. The unified entity has the necessary means to rival BBC World, CNN International, and Al Jazeera in terms of quality, responsiveness, and global coverage. It explicitly assumes a French point of view - as BBC World assumes a British point of view - without claiming a neutrality that would be a fiction.
TV5 Monde already fulfills a distinct and complementary function: the cultural and linguistic influence of the Francophonie in the broad sense, beyond France alone. Its multilateral status is maintained but its governance is renegotiated: the French contribution represents approximately 70% of the channel's total budget, without this share being reflected in decision-making power. France obtains governance strictly proportional to its financial contribution: either a capital increase to 70%, or a reduction of its contribution to 49% of the budget. This renegotiation does not call into question the Francophone mission of TV5 Monde: it puts an end to an anomaly in which France finances without governing.
All other public audiovisual structures are abolished or privatized. Public media benefit from strictly framed targeted funding for precise projects: all structural financial dependence is proscribed. Advertising is reduced to a minimum with the explicit objective of its progressive elimination, to free public broadcasting from any commercial ratings logic. Public broadcasting no longer seeks to compete with private media on their own ground: it fully assumes its specific role - to elevate, transmit, structure public debate, and embody a cultural and civic standard that the market, by nature, cannot guarantee.
Private media
All radio stations are fully privatized: no public subsidy without exception. For private television, the allocation of DTT frequencies is conditional on a governance mode guaranteeing editorial independence: the cooperative model of the journalists' cooperative society. The media outlet belongs collectively to its journalists, each holding an equivalent share of the capital. Entry into the newsroom implies the acquisition of shares, departure entails their mandatory resale to the structure or to the other members. This system structurally prevents capture by external interests and protects the editorial line: internal governance remains internal, without external interference even in the event of disagreement.
The journalistic capital access fund
Pour éviter que ce modèle ne devienne socialement excluant, un fonds dédié accorde des prêts individuels à taux zéro aux journalistes rejoignant une structure coopérative, permettant l’acquisition des parts nécessaires à l’entrée au capital. Ces prêts sont intégralement remboursables : soit par prélèvements progressifs sur les revenus professionnels, soit lors de la revente des parts en cas de départ. Ce fonds ne peut en aucun cas financer le fonctionnement des médias, leur ligne éditoriale ou leur masse salariale. Il est alimenté par une contribution spécifique des chaînes de télévision privées bénéficiant de l’occupation du spectre hertzien : le fonds est strictement plafonné ; lorsque le plafond est atteint, son alimentation est automatiquement suspendue et ne reprend qu’en cas de diminution effective des ressources disponibles.
Journalistic professional standards
The real independence of media outlets presupposes clear, binding, and enforceable professional standards. Every journalist working in a television medium (public or private) is subject to strict transparency obligations. Upon entry into a media outlet, then annually, a public declaration of interests is mandatory: financial, professional, associative, and family ties likely to influence the treatment of information. Any omission or false declaration entails immediate sanctions.
Every journalist working on a public channel sits a competitive examination or meets minimum criteria of professional competence and is revocable by citizen-initiated referendum when serious and repeated breaches of professional standards, intellectual honesty, or accuracy of information are established. This revocability does not aim to intimidate: it recalls that mass information carries a major democratic responsibility. The reformed Senate and the king ensure the effective application of the sanction: mandatory resignation or dismissal of the journalist concerned. The revocatory RIC does not apply to private media, which fall under market regulation and economic accountability.
Any personal, family, or professional tie with political figures currently in office is incompatible with the journalistic function in audiovisual media. When such a tie exists or appears, it imposes either the definitive withdrawal of the journalist from the profession, or the withdrawal of the political figure from public life. Cumulation is proscribed: any proven breach entails automatic dismissal and proportionate sanctions. The exercise of national audiovisual journalism requires a clean criminal record.
These rules do not constitute a restriction of press freedom: they are its condition of credibility. A free press is not an irresponsible press; it is an independent, transparent press, fully accountable for its role in democratic life.
The purpose
Cette refondation ne vise ni à faire taire, ni à orienter, ni à uniformiser. Elle vise à rendre aux médias leur fonction politique noble : informer, confronter, éclairer, sans dépendance, sans faux-semblants, sans rente. Un média libre n’est pas un média subventionné. Un média crédible n’est pas un média neutre : c’est un média honnête sur ce qu’il est. Un paysage médiatique sain est un paysage où le public choisit, soutient ou abandonne, et où l’État ne manipule plus par l’argent ce qu’il prétend ne pas contrôler. Sans information libre, il n’y a ni peuple éclairé, ni consentement réel, ni autorité légitime.
The electoral campaign
Television remains the most structuring medium of the national political space: it reaches a wide audience, sometimes not very politicized, and durably shapes collective perceptions. Throughout the official duration of electoral campaigns, strict equality of political airtime is imposed, with a maximum margin of 5% between the most exposed party and the least exposed, applicable to all formats - news programs, political broadcasts, debates, interviews, current affairs programs. Any characterized overrun entails immediate financial sanctions, then in the event of recidivism a temporary suspension of frequency. The repetition of breaches may lead to the definitive withdrawal of the broadcasting license.
Les chaînes de télévision ont l’obligation d’organiser des débats contradictoires réguliers et systématiques réunissant les différentes forces politiques en lice. L’absence répétée de débat, l’exclusion injustifiée de certaines listes ou partis, ou la mise en scène de faux contradictoires peuvent faire l’objet de signalements citoyens : en cas de signalements massifs ou concordants, le Sénat réformé a le devoir de se saisir du dossier et d’ouvrir une instruction.
Radio rests on a more voluntary and more fragmented logic: it cannot be subjected to an identical regime without harming the quality of debate. National and regional news radio stations have the obligation to organize contradictory debates during electoral campaigns, to guarantee a balanced representation of the political forces present, and to clearly distinguish between information, analysis, and opinion. Not a timing to the nearest second: an effective, controllable, and visible pluralism.
Alternative media distributed on social networks or digital platforms depend neither on public frequencies, nor on state subsidies, nor on an institutional status. They are subject to no obligation of neutrality or electoral balance: they may openly support a candidate, campaign, assume a militant line. This freedom is fully assumed because it is exercised outside any binding public framework. It constitutes a natural counterweight to mass media and participates in overall pluralism without requiring state regulation.
Any electoral poll is prohibited starting six months before the first round: the prohibition covers publication, distribution, commentary, and commissioning. The objective is to prevent the transformation of elections into media horse races and to restore to political debate its primacy over artificial opinion dynamics.
The prohibition covers the entire chain: the commissioner who finances and orders the poll, the institute that conducts it, and the broadcaster that publishes it are jointly responsible. A poll commissioned during the prohibited period implicates as much the one who financed it as the one who made it public.
For the broadcaster, the sanctions are those already provided for overruns of airtime: a fine proportional to the turnover generated on the territory, then temporary suspension of frequency in the event of recidivism, then definitive withdrawal of the broadcasting license.
For the polling institute: a fine proportional to its turnover, temporary suspension of the authorization to operate in the event of recidivism, definitive withdrawal in the event of serious recidivism or proven complicity with a commissioner seeking to influence a sovereign vote. The directors of the institute are personally and criminally responsible: the legal structure does not constitute a shield.
For the commissioner: a fine proportional to its turnover or communication budget according to its nature, company, party, association, or individual. In the event of recidivism, definitive prohibition from commissioning electoral polls. If the commissioner is foreign, expulsion of its physical representatives from the territory and prohibition from exercising any commercial or communication activity in France.
This differentiated regulation rests on a fundamental principle: democratic equality does not mean uniformity of rules, but the adequacy between the influence power of a medium and the level of responsibility imposed on it. Television must be exemplary. Radio must guarantee debate without being stifled. Independent media must remain free. The electoral campaign once again becomes what it must be: a time of confrontation of ideas, and not a media product shaped by ratings, connivance, or manipulation.