France

[FR] Air-time During the Official Campaign for the Election of the President

IRIS 1995-5:1/10

Ad van Loon

European Audiovisual Observatory

According to the general provisions of Art.1, candidates have the right to equal air-time in the programmes of national broadcasting companies, with the same production, programming and broadcasting conditions. Should the candidates not use up all the time allocated to them for any single broadcast, then they cannot add the remaining time to another of their broadcasts. Any difficulties that may arise from the application and interpretation of this decision come under the CSA ( Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel - Audiovisual Supervisory Board). When the list of candidates is published in the Official Journal, the CSA meets in the presence of the candidates' appointed representatives in order to draw lots for the attribution of the time slots for the candidates broadcasts for the second round of the election.

The second Article deals with the broadcast proper and states that the candidate him or herself should do the broadcast. However, each candidate may request the participation in the broadcast of those political parties or organisations whose activity extends throughout the country and which are designated by the candidate and authorised by the CSA. Candidates may produce video or sound documents, at their own expense, which they may use on their broadcasts. During the broadcast, the candidates or other participants may talk freely on questions that form part of the campaign.

Moreover, no opinion poll relating directly or indirectly to the election may be published in the week preceding the election, in application of article 11 of the law of 19 July 1977.

Articles III and IV of the decision n° 95-139 of 24 April 1995 deals with the broadcasting, production, recording and editing of the programmes.