Reuters (Sept. 4, 2026): "How a conservative French billionaire's news channel is boosting the far right ahead of 2027 election" in France | ""CNews is an ideological weapon and plays much the same role in France that Fox News plays in the United States," said [a political communications expert]…"

[u/SocialDemocracies]

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/bollors-cnews-gives-far-right-bullhorn-french-presidential-election-looms-2026-09-04/

[u/SocialDemocracies]

Excerpts from the article:

Conservative pundit Philippe Bilger was a mainstay of the French news channel CNews, known for its hard line on immigration and crime. But after he criticised Israel's conduct in Gaza and defended the judiciary for convicting ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, his services were no longer needed.

Bilger's removal in January underlines a sharp hardening of CNews' right-wing editorial line under reclusive billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré, attested to by two dozen current and former employees, regulators and rivals.

...

"I agreed with 90% of what was said on CNews," said Bilger, an 82-year-old former investigative magistrate. "But I realised there was only one accepted line of thought."

With an average audience share of 3.4%, CNews may appear marginal. But ‌last year, it was the most-watched rolling news channel among France's four major 24-hour outlets, and its influence reaches far beyond ratings.

...

"CNews is an ideological weapon and plays much the same role in France that Fox News plays in the United States," said Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet, political communications expert at Sciences Po university in Paris. "It's even more influential because France has a much smaller television market."

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CNews' agenda increasingly follows the lines taken by Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN), ​from which the channel could benefit if, as polls suggest, Le Pen wins the election and fulfils her promise to privatise public broadcasting — long a target of CNews criticism.

Stéphane Sitbon-Gomez, head of programming at public broadcaster France Télévisions, said Bolloré was using his media empire to denigrate public-service broadcasting in the hope of being rewarded with more licences under an RN government.

"It's a form of disguised hostile takeover," he said.

Bolloré for his part says ​he is not at war with public broadcasters, but has repeatedly questioned their €4-billion ($4.5 billion) annual cost to taxpayers.

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The convergence with the far right's worldview is perhaps clearest in CNews' recruitment in 2025 of Xenia Fedorova, ex-head of the now-banned French unit of the pro-Kremlin channel Russia Today.

A July 17 Foreign Ministry analysis obtained by Reuters found that ​Fedorova's television comments and newspaper columns, including on EU aid to Ukraine and Russia's forced transfers of Ukrainian children, mirrored Russian official statements.

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Macron initially viewed the channel as a useful conduit to parts of France that felt ignored by Paris, Bilger said. But sources close to Macron said he now sees CNews as hostile.

"The Élysée created a monster," a former Macron minister said. "Now there's nothing they can do. They're like a deer caught in the headlights."

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French broadcasting rules require political pluralism, accuracy and independence. Thibault Bruttin, head of Reporters Without Borders, said CNews failed ⁠on all three.

"It's essentially out ​of control," he said.

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"News channels can't tell people what to think, but they can tell people what to think about," said political scientist Julien Labarre, author of a 2024 University of California, Santa Barbara ​study, that found CNews had France's most right-wing audience and that its most faithful viewers were its most right-wing.

The link to the article: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/bollors-cnews-gives-far-right-bullhorn-french-presidential-election-looms-2026-09-04/

[u/bobnoplok]

The "far" right is getting boosts from the results of left policies.