2022, le compte à rebours" sequence shown on March 29, 2022: response to the plaintiffs

Arcom was alerted to a sequence on the 8pm news program entitled "2022, le compte à rebours" to which Messrs Éric Zemmour and Olivier Besancenot were invited as part of the campaign for the presidential election.

The notice adopted by the French Superior Audiovisual Council on October 6, 2021 with a view to the presidential election makes provision for in point 3° of 1.4 that "During the election campaign, publishers shall ensure, in accordance with I bis of article 3 of the aforementioned law no. 62-1292 of November 6, 1962, that speaking times and airtime granted to candidates and their supporters are equal under comparable programming conditions."

In accordance with the principle of editorial freedom, it is up to the publishers alone to determine the procedures that will enable them to meet this obligation. In the case in point, the publisher was able to show the contributions of each guest for different lengths of time without infringing the principle of plurality, since this is assessed over a given period and not within a single program.

Consequently, the Authority did not intervene against the service editor.