RFI staff carry on strike over merger of French public media

Employees across France's public broadcasting sector, including RFI, continued their strike for a second day Friday in protest over a proposed merger of state-financed media companies.

More programmes and magazines were shelved on Friday after workers at France Médias Monde, France Télévisions and Radio France downed tools a day earlier – forcing the cancellation of broadcasts.

Rallies were held near the National Assembly and the Ministry of Culture in Paris.

A debate in parliament devoted to thrashing out details of the bill, which Culture Minister Rachida Dati says will strengthen the public media industry, was pontponed to June.

In a message on social media, Dati sought to reassure employees.

"I want to guarantee you not only sustainability but (also) your strength in a world of exacerbated competition between platforms and social networks," she wrote.

"Obviously, we are not going to standardise either professions or activities," she insisted on Wednesday in the Senate during questions to the government.

Dati's predecessor, Franck Riester, tried to push through a revamp of public media companies but it was scrapped due to the Covid pandemic.

The first step of the reorganisation would be a transitional phase, with a common holding company for public broadcasting as of 1 January, 2025. A merger would follow a year later.

The bill would spawn a giant company called France Médias. It would boast a budget of €4 billion and would bring together France Télévisions, Radio France and the National Audiovisual Institute (INA).

Some 16,000 employees would be affected be the change.

It has not yet been decided if France Médias Monde (RFI, France 24, Monte Carlo Doualiya) will be part of the merger plan.

'Demagogic and dangerous'

In a column in daily newspaper Le Monde published on Wednesday, more than 1,100 Radio France employees slammed the project as demagogic, ineffective and dangerous. 

"Our survival is at stake," they wrote.
France Télévisions union representatives said in a press release: "At a time when public broadcasting is fully playing its role facing private media controlled by a handful of billionaires, why involve them in a merger that is complex, anxiety-provoking for employees, and without real editorial objective?”

Political divisions

Far-right National Rally (RN) MPs are in favour of a pure and simple privatisation of public broadcasting and support the merger project.

The right-wing parties, like Les Republicains are not against a merger either, but have questioned the feasibility of the timetable.

The far-left France Unbowed (LFI) sees the project as "the culmination of the denigration and weakening" of the public service and an attempt to grab more control by President Emmanuel Macron.

"Returning to the days of the ORTF won't allow us to compete with Netflix," the Greens said.

The ORTF is the structure which brought together French public broadcasting until the 1970s, and whose lack of independence was criticised.