French political row over calls for overhaul and €1bn cuts at public broadcaster

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. French political row over calls for overhaul and €1bn cuts at public broadcaster 2 hours ago Share Save Add as preferred on Google Hugh Schofield Paris Correspondent Charles Alloncle, the rapporteur of the committee and an MP for the small Union of the Right for the Republic party, claims to be the victim of state media prejudice France's public sector broadcasters have been lambasted by a parliamentary committee of enquiry, which recommends closing several channels and cutting their budget by a total of €1bn (£863m). The committee, which held six months of at times acrimonious hearings, levelled charges of left-wing bias at state-owned France Télévisions and Radio France, as well as gross financial waste. But the findings were immediately dismissed as politically motivated and impractical by industry insiders, who said that the committee's rapporteur, Charles Alloncle, had a far-right agenda to prepare state TV and radio for privatisation.

Criticism has also come from the prime minister and the head of the committee. Alloncle, 32, is an MP for the small Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) party, an ally of Marine Le Pen's populist-right National Rally (RN). The RN – the biggest party in France – has long claimed to be the victim of state media prejudice.

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In an online petition calling for privatisation, the party says that "public broadcasting is no longer a space of impartial information, but a tool of influence in the service of a particular camp". The heated French debate reflects similar tensions in other countries over the future of tax-funded "legacy" broadcasters, whose declining audiences leave them dangerously exposed to attack. In France, the cost to the state of public broadcasting amounts to nearly €4bn every year.

Up until 2022, this was mainly financed by a television licence fee, but it now comes from VAT receipts. Unlike the , for example, French state broadcasters also take advertising. For their money, tax-payers receive a panoply of television and radio stations - nearly 100 if local, overseas and foreign language channels are included - as well as France 2 and France 3, two parliamentary channels, two television news channels, the European channel ARTE, and the archives of the National Audiovisual Institute (INA).

That is not to mention accompanying websites. Alloncle wants to merge the mainstream France 2 channel with the less-watched France 5 In the introduction to his report, Alloncle says: "To sum up, our public audiovisual system is ill-adapted to the challenges of the modern era", and he calls for "a total or partial overhaul of the way the sector operates". Among his 69 recommendations are a cut by one third in television's sports budget, and a big reduction in the number of game shows; and abolishing the youth channel France 4, as well as digital channel Slash and the radio station Mouv' – both also aimed at the young.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.