Parliamentary Commission on Public Broadcasting: the president suspends summons to restore calm

Rarely has a parliamentary committee been so tense. The president of the parliamentary commission of inquiry on public broadcasting, Jérémie Patrier-Leitus, indicated this Tuesday that he had suspended the sending of invitations to hearings after a multiplication of incidents, pending a meeting on January 6 intended to find a “dignified, serious and respectful framework”.

“This is not a suspension of the commission or its work, which will resume. But we had set rules and these are not always respected,” declared the Horizons MP, confirming information from Le Monde.

The work of the commission, created at the request of the UDR, an allied party of the RN which advocates the privatization of the public audiovisual service, has taken place since its launch at the end of November, in a climate of hostility.

Thus the president of Radio France Sibyle Veil deplored, in a letter to the members of the commission, the “public distortions” of her remarks made during the hearing, targeting publications on X by her rapporteur, the UDR deputy Charles Alloncle.

The latter also indicated that Delphine Ernotte would refuse to transmit certain documents to him, which led the rapporteur of the commission of inquiry into the neutrality of public broadcasting to threaten the president of France Télévisions… with a search, according to Europe 1.

The commission must not turn into “a trial”

The president of the commission Jérémie Patrier-Leitus reminded him on several occasions that it should not turn into a “trial” of public broadcasting.

Last week, during the hearings of journalists Thomas Legrand and Patrick Cohen, several left-wing elected officials called to “stop (the) show”, denouncing an “attempt at humiliation” on the part of the far right. The two journalists were at the center of criticism after the broadcast of a video recorded without their knowledge where they are at a restaurant with Socialist Party executives.

“I have called a meeting of the office on Tuesday January 6 at 4 p.m. in which the rapporteur, the members of the office and one representative per political group will participate,” Jérémie Patrier-Leitus said in a press release, specifying that the convenings would then resume.

“We need a minimum set of rules shared by all so that this work takes place in a dignified, serious and respectful framework,” he added in conclusion.