PARIS — Ten days before French conservatives face off in a live TV debate, a strike brought on by a sex scandal at a major news network is threatening to ruin their day.
The stop-work action has disrupted programming at iTELE, one of two 24-hour news channels due to host the second conservative debate on November 3. Unless iTELE resumes broadcasting regular programs — currently, it’s showing old documentaries — candidates, including former President Nicolas Sarkozy and former Prime Minster Alain Juppé, will be able to reach far fewer centrist and conservative voters than they had hoped ahead of a two-round primary in late November.
Primary organizer Thierry Solère is negotiating with the channel to avoid a debate flop.
But the debate is only collateral damage in a much larger controversy that pits journalists against one of France’s richest and most powerful men, Vincent Bolloré. It underscores tension between capitalism and journalism at a time when most French media groups have come under the sway of powerful investors.
Bolloré has a controlling stake in Vivendi, a media conglomerate whose properties include iTELE and the subscription-based channel Canal+.
At the heart of the showdown at iTELE is Bolloré’s decision to stand behind Jean-Marc Morandini, a popular TV talk show host who has been accused of multiple counts of sexual wrongdoing.
Jean-Marc Morandini during a press conference in July | Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/AFP via Getty Images
“The conflict at iTELE is a battle emblematic of what is at stake in media and the profession of journalism, especially since powerful industrial groups like Vivendi, or billionaires seeking more influence, have taken over many properties,” the center-left daily Le Monde wrote in a recent op-ed about the Morandini affair.
(POLITICO Europe has a partnership with iTELE under which this reporter appears each Friday to deliver a short editorial.)
Morandini-gate
Morandini, who previously hosted a successful show on D8, another Bolloré-owned channel, was contracted to begin hosting a show on iTELE this fall. But that plan was called into question when Morandini, who is known in France as a middle-brow entertainer, became the object of a formal investigation for “corruption of minors” and “aggravated corruption of minors.”
According to court documents cited by French media, one accuser now aged 18 alleged that Morandini had sent him sexually charged electronic messages. Another, now aged 23, said the host had asked to take nude photographs of him during a casting call that took place at the 51-year-old’s apartment without supervision.
In a separate investigation, Morandini is accused of multiple accounts of sexual harassment. Five accusers allege that the host asked them to pose nude, masturbate and perform sexual acts upon him during casting calls for a web series about football that he was producing.
“There are people who do not feel comfortable working with Morandini, and their position cannot just be ignored” — Antoine Genton, iTELE news host
As the accusations against Morandini piled up over the summer, staff at iTELE — already riled by an abrupt management overhaul in which a 31-year-old with limited experience was made the channel’s number two — revolted.
Outraged at having to work with Morandini, whose appointment many resented as being out of sync with the channel’s serious tone, they demanded that his contract be suspended until investigations into sexual wrongdoing are completed.
“We fully respect that he is innocent until proven guilty,” Antoine Genton, host of a weekend news program, told POLITICO. “But the fact is that there are people who do not feel comfortable working with Morandini, and their position cannot just be ignored.”
Bolloré’s icy message
However, Bolloré had no intention of caving in to demands.
Fresh from a victory in a separate clash — which had pitted him against Canal+ staffers following his decision to pull the plug on an iconic but failing show called Les Guignols — Bolloré dispatched iTELE CEO Serge Nadjar to deliver an icy message to staffers.
If they were unhappy about the decision to reinstate Morandini, then they were free to leave the building, Nadjar told his employees during a general meeting, according to remarks reported by journalists present.
Several senior staffers at the channel soon handed in their resignation. Alexandre Ifi, who had been appointed interim director, and Olivier Ravanello, a senior foreign affairs reporter, both bolted from the channel, while the rest of the staff began to picket each morning in front of the channel’s headquarters near Paris.
That was 10 days ago. Each morning, a majority of staffers, about 80 percent, according to union representatives, have approved motions to pursue the strike, which is unprecedented in the highly competitive field of live news broadcasting.
Meanwhile, since last Monday iTELE stopped broadcasting its regular news lineup with disastrous consequences for a channel already losing ground to rival BFMTV and the newly revamped LCI channel.
“We’d already fallen to about 0.8 market share before the Morandini affair,” said one staffer who asked not be named. “Now it’s down to 0.5 percent and falling every day as this thing continues. It’s a disaster for the channel.”
‘Naiveté and inexperience’
With negotiations between management, led by Nadjar, and iTELE staff, stretching into their second week, many at the channel wonder why Bolloré keeps on defending the disgraced Morandini.
“He [Morandini] must have something on Bolloré, there’s no other way he would let things get to this point,” said the same iTELE staffer, who is a regular on air for the channel.
But a high-level insider at Vivendi squashed that theory, arguing Bolloré was acting at least in part out of personal loyalty for Morandini. The 51-year-old host had run a successful show at D8, another Bolloré-owned channel, that had helped to establish it under the direction of the tycoon’s son, Yannick.
Vincent Bolloré with Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo | Patrick Kovarik/AFP via Getty Images
At the same time, the insider said, Bolloré was acting from a position of naiveté and inexperience when it came to dealing with journalists — a species of employees far more rebellious than the bankers, engineers or construction workers with whom he has dealt all his career.
Having started as an investment banker, Bolloré parlayed a family holding, originally invested in cigarette and Bible paper, into a vast conglomerate with arms in construction and advertising. Along the way, he cultivated powerful friends among French conservatives, most notably Nicolas Sarkozy.
For most of his career, Bolloré studiously avoided the media. Suspicious of a profession whose members he views as left-wing rabble-rousers, he shunned interviews and preferred to operate by pulling strings behind the scenes.
It was only when Bolloré acquired a stake in Vivendi that he had to grapple with real, live journalists now under his indirect authority.
Can’t protect them all
Ever since he became a media owner, the insider said, Bolloré has been worried about being responsible for content, news or other, that could be embarrassing or damaging to his friends and potentially disrupting their political ambitions. Added to his wariness is a limited understanding of the true impact of most news reporting.
This concern explains why Bolloré is accused of having nixed the airing of an investigative report into the Crédit Mutuel, a bank run by one of his friends. It also clarifies why he has taken such an unyielding stance at iTELE: If journalists get their way, the channel will be out of his control, and liable to become a weapon against his allies.
The same politicians Bolloré sought to protect now risk being deprived of airtime due to his intransigence.
With the primary debate hanging in the balance, Bolloré’s move appears to be backfiring. The same politicians he sought to protect now risk being deprived of airtime due to his intransigence.
Sarkozy’s allies are taking matters into their own hands. According to Le Monde, Thierry Solère is appealing to the “highest level” in Vivendi to put the channel back on the air so that at least some viewers will be tuned in when the debate comes on.
That means reaching out to Bolloré himself.