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The Paris Administrative Court, followed by the Conseil d’État (Council of State), was recently asked to issue urgent decisions by three politicians who wanted to participate in a televised debate involving nine other candidates heading party lists in the European elections, which was broadcast on France 2 at 9 p.m. on 4 April 2019. They were Benoît Hamon, François Asselineau and Florian Philippot, who headed the lists for Génération.s, the UPR and Les Patriotes respectively. On 1 April 2019, the urgent applications judge of the Paris Administrative Court allowed the politicians’ requests. He pointed...

Following the proposal by the French President Emmanuel Macron and the endorsement by the National Assembly and the Senate, Roch-Olivier Maistre was appointed as President of the French “Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel” (CSA) for a six-year mandate, as of 4 February 2019. He replaces Olivier Schrameck, whose term came to an end on 23 January 2019. Roch-Olivier Maistre was, inter alia, an Adviser to the Office of the Minister of Culture and Communication, an Adviser for Education, Culture and Communication to the French President, President of the Regulatory Authority for Press Distribution (Autorité...

On 21 February 2019, at the request of the National Assembly’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education, the French competition authority published its opinion on the forthcoming audiovisual reforms. The authority’s key proposal is for the relaxation of restrictions on traditional audiovisual providers in order to enable them to compete on equal terms with online video platforms (e.g. Amazon and Netflix). The evidence is clear: these new platforms, which entered the market in 2014 and have more subscribers in France than Canal Plus (Netflix has over 5 million subscribers) have adopted an innovative...

Vivendi, which owns Canal Plus and whose majority shareholder is Vincent Bolloré, sued a journalist who co-authored a television documentary entitled “Evasion fiscale, enquête sur le Crédit Mutuel” (“Tax evasion -, investigation into Crédit Mutuel”). Initially due to be broadcast on Canal Plus in May 2015, the documentary was finally shown five months later on France 3. While Canal Plus claimed that it had not broadcast the programme for author-exclusivity reasons, the journalist said that the programme had been shelved on account of the relationship between the President of Canal Plus and the...

On 31 January 2019, a Catholic priest suspected of abusing boy scouts lodged an application for emergency proceedings to be initiated against the film production company responsible for the film “Grâce à Dieu” (“By the Grace of God”), which was due to be released on 20 February 2019. Copies had already been delivered to 307 cinemas and a huge publicity campaign costing EUR 1 million had already been launched. Directed by François Ozon, the film depicts the battle fought by victims of child abuse allegedly carried out by the priest, whose real name is used in the film. Claiming a violation of his...