Complément d'enquête" shown on June 19, 2025: France 2 warned

Arcom was alerted to a documentary on the program Complément d'enquête, shown on France 2 on June 19, 2025, implicating the Senate.

Regarding the handling of the reported harassment of parliamentary staff, the Authority noted that different points of view had been gathered or researched on the two reports that had led to internal proceedings in the French Senate and to verdicts by the Conseil des Prud'hommes admitting to the existence of harassment facts. It regrets, however, that the comments made by one of the parliamentary staff members who denounced harassment against him, concerning the modification of the proceedings for dealing with reports of harassment, were not put into perspective in such a way as to impair the viewer's understanding. These remarks suggest that the President of the French Senate had modified the proceedings in order to prevent the reports from being taken into account, whereas it is clear from the documents in the file sent to the Authority and from the public information available that this modification, decided by the Senate Bureau, was introduced in order to improve the management of harassment reports.

The part of the program devoted to the expenses of a senator's mandate that gave rise to requests for reimbursement of expenses suspected of being unrelated to the exercise of his mandate, concludes with the statement that in 2023, " barely half [of senators' expenses] were controlled ". Such a statement, which is not accompanied by any details concerning the nature and scope of the controls carried out, and which is not put into perspective with regard to the requirements applicable in this field, can only suggest, in the context of the broadcast, that the controls carried out on senators' expenses are particularly inadequate. However, the public reports of the French senate's ethics committee do indeed refer to a controlled proceedings, supported " by some twenty independent chartered accountants ". It states that "All senators are audited each year, on the basis of a sampling of their expenses, with in-depth audits covering between 40 and 60% of expenses and cross-cutting audits between 20 and 30% ". This work is carried out under the supervision of the Compagnie Nationale des Commissaires aux Comptes (CNCC).

Furthermore, in the final part of the program, a former French senate doctor claims that the institution agreed to grant undue benefits to a secretary as part of a blackmail scheme based on her alleged possession of intimate videos of senators. The documentary points out that the person concerned is in dispute with the institution following his dismissal; an extract from an interview with the President of the French Senate is also shown, in which the latter claims never to have seen the videos and to have referred the matter to the state prosecutor. In view of the predominant place given to the doctor's testimony and the absence of any real contradiction on the part of the journalist interviewing him, despite the seriousness of the accusations made by the defendant, the serious facts in question, which tend to be presented as established, cannot be considered to have been treated with the required restraint and rigor. What's more, no mention was made of the fact that the secretary in question had been dismissed, despite the fact that this information was public knowledge, thereby lending credence to the idea that the institution had taken no action whatsoever against her.

Subsequently, the journalist himself refers to " drug-dealing senators ", " drug trafficking ", " drug dealers " within the French senate. These serious acknowledgements are made without any use of the conditional tense or perspective, and are based on statements made in the course of the manager's respondent investigation, as well as on the words of the aforementioned doctor, who is in dispute with the French senate. Arcom therefore considered that the information thus reported on the basis of ongoing judicial proceedings could not be considered to have been treated with the required measure and rigor.

As a result, Arcom warned the service editor to demonstrate rigor and honesty in the presentation and processing of information, as well as restraint when referring to ongoing judicial proceedings. It has also referred the matter to the ethics committee set up by the France Télévisions group, which may conduct a further review.