Freedom of expression and plurality" conference - Martin Ajdari's speech

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Mr Chairman, dear Laurent Lafon,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

dear friends,

This event owes a great deal to the warm welcome extended by President Gérard Larcher, and to the dedication of President Lafon and the French senate's cultural affairs and education committee, to whom I extend my warmest thanks.

It would not have been possible without the involvement of the French senate and Arcom teams, to whom I would like to pay tribute.

And of course I'd like to thank all the speakers for the quality and richness of their discussions, which, under the guidance of Tam Tran Huy from French senate, made this symposium a success and an exciting event.

For my part, I'd like to draw two conclusions from this morning's discussions.

The first is the relevance - and topicality - of the French and European understanding of freedom of expression and plurality.

The first round-table discussion highlighted the shared principles of this concept, recently set out in a common norm, the European regulation on media freedom - which we expect to be adapted into French law as soon as possible.

This concept is based on the primacy of freedom of expression. And this is our compass at Arcom: every time we make a decision, we point out as often as necessary that the law is first and foremost the guarantor of freedom, including the right to make comments that may offend or shock.

But the European conception of freedom of expression gives it a complementary dimension. We protect not only freedom, but also the dignity of individuals and groups. We also support the right of individuals to receive a diversity of ideas in order to make free and informed choices: this is the requirement of plurality.

This requirement is one of the conditions of our democracy, as underlined by the Constitutional Council in its decision on the great audiovisuel law of 1986, 40 years ago. In fact, it is our democracy that is at stake when freedom of expression, in the absence of guarantees of plurality, threatens to be confiscated by economic interests or political power.

I wanted to make this point at a time when this ambitious concept of freedom of expression is being challenged on two fronts, as has been widely discussed this morning:

• by an illiberal trend (including within our own continent), which is undermining the foundations of freedom of expression and communication by seeking to enslave regulation and public service ;
• by a new form of libertarianism, which seeks to free itself from any framework, and hence from any protection for the weakest.

The absence this morning of platform representatives - even though they were invited - is a sign, if not of their embarrassment on these issues, at least of the growing gap between the values we intend to defend in Europe, and the trends observed elsewhere, across the Atlantic.

Our mission at Arcom is to promote and protect free, balanced and plurality in public debate. However, and this is my second conclusion, the concrete, effective translation of these objectives is difficult and faces three challenges.

First, the challenge of the economic weakening of our media, the bearers of these values. This weakening poses the threat of information deserts, which mean the death of plurality and the radicalization of opinions, as recent American history testifies.

In the interests of the public and of our democracy, it is our collective duty to support news-producing media, and to ensure that regulation develops in a way that remains favorable to their economic health. This will be a central issue in the DTT White Paper, which Arcom will be working on in 2026. It will also be a central issue in the revision of the AVMS directive, by creating the conditions for better exposure, on all media, of services of general interest (DTT channels and, we hope, certain radio stations), and for more balanced competition with platforms on the advertising market. This could also be one of the challenges for AI regulation: the fair remuneration of information producers for the use of their content, in the spirit of the report just approved by the European Parliament and the bill tabled in the French senate at the end of autumn.

Last but not least, I would like to mention the specific role of public audiovisuel, which, according to our study published with the DGMIC last week, accounts for over 30% of the total cost of information (due in particular to its territorial and overseas presence), and which must have stable funding prospects commensurate with its missions.

The second challenge is to ensure the plurality and quality of information on platforms, where more than half of our fellow citizens now get their news. The challenge here is to prevent freedom of expression from being confiscated or hijacked by algorithms, at the risk of exposing us to information that is insufficiently plural, sensational and polarized, sometimes falsified by AI, or even deliberately misinformed by foreign powers.

We are counting on Viginum, with whom we have developed a very fluid and trusting partnership, to identify and prevent these risks of interference, particularly during election periods.

More broadly, the implementation of the Digital Services Regulation, one of whose objectives is to protect the conditions for democratic debate, must move up a gear. This is the purpose of the first legal sanctions decided by the European Commission in December. More are certainly needed. Even if, let's not forget, the objective of the DSA is compliance with our values, not legal sanctions or exclusion. DSA can be developed and modernised to meet the challenges it faces, but we absolutely must accelerate its roll-out.

The third challenge, which lies at the heart of Arcom's mission, is to strengthen the confidence of our fellow citizens in the media, in order to reassure them that debate is indeed free and plural, something they doubt.

The first condition of this confidence is to ensure that everyone is educated in the media and in digital citizenship. It's the role of each and every one of us - the media, civil society and the national education system - to contribute to this, since freedom begins where ignorance ends, to quote Victor Hugo.

To strengthen trust, we also need to convince our fellow citizens that debate is not confiscated by economic interests, the primary concern of those who doubt (the reliability of information) according to a study we published today. This may mean adapting regulation to market developments, marked by the emergence of global groups, present on all media (TV, radio, press, digital). This is the challenge, highlighted by the États généraux de l'information, of a renewed merger control system.

The aim is not to prevent all economic consolidation - some of which may be necessary for the survival of groups and the existence of the voices they carry - but to make provision for control proportionate to the overall influence of media groups, and where appropriate, to impose additional requirements in terms of honesty, independence and plurality.

Strengthening trust also means ensuring that the principles that the Bloche law sought to strengthen in 2016 - honesty, independence and plurality - are respected within each of the media. Three-quarters of our fellow citizens expect the media to allow all points of view to be expressed freely.

With regard to internal plurality in particular, Arcom must ensure compliance with the new managerial framework laid down by the Conseil d'Etat in 2024. We must now take an interest in the expression of all points of view on air (columnists, guests, etc.) and, in addition to balancing the speaking time of politicians, ensure the "absence of a clear and lasting imbalance" in the expression of opinions on TV channels or radio stations producing information.

This new dimension of plurality is partly a response to the proliferation of all-news channels, and to the tendency of some to assert their editorial identity more clearly. We are aware that it raises considerable expectations, but at the same time it is a very delicate matter to implement.

Arcom will actively pursue its dialogue with publishers on this point, to deepen its analysis of potential imbalances. And we will be taking decisions to prevent imbalances, and where appropriate, to impose legal sanctions, on the basis of submissions of a case before the court, such as the one we received from Reporters Without Borders last week.

Strengthening public confidence in a polarized society is another challenge facing public audiovisuel. A public audiovisuel which, through the diversity of its guests and the formidable variety of topics it tackles, is one of the indispensable ingredients of a rich, free and plural democratic debate, but which today finds itself challenged in France as elsewhere, on the grounds of an alleged lack of impartiality.

The law makes Arcom the guarantor of the impartiality of public audiovisuel, and we are working with its directors to better define, measure and guarantee this impartiality, precisely with the aim of strengthening the confidence of our fellow citizens. This is the aim of the mission I have entrusted to Bruno Lasserre, whose conclusions will be made public at the end of spring.

These three challenges - economic, digital and democratic - go beyond the remit of the regulator alone. As they affect our fundamental freedoms, they fall within the full remit of national and European legislators.

Draft legislation has been tabled and debated, or is due to be, on mergers, plurality, public audiovisuel and the implementation of the États généraux de l'information.

They could be an opportunity to clarify certain delicate debates, such as that on plurality, where, for some, the multiplication of information sources renders obsolete the plurality requirements imposed on each channel, and justifies authorizing, as it were, opinion channels with or without an "s"; while for others, on the contrary, the radicalization of public debate makes it more necessary than ever to preserve spaces for the balanced confrontation of ideas.

Contrary to what I sometimes read, Arcom has no preconceived ideas on this issue: on the contrary, we are at the disposal of Parliament, and the French senate in particular, to provide food for thought.

And while we await the eventual outcome of these debates, which in my view are desirable, our mission is to enforce the law.

This morning's discussions have shown that we must do so with a hand that is both cautious and determined, protecting freedom, including the freedom to make offensive comments, but abiding by the limits set by the law.

And with the strength of Arcom's collegiality, which is both a guarantee of our independence and the best response to the contradictory accusations of laxity and censorship that are often levelled at us.

We will continue to enforce a law in the service of our fellow citizens, because defending freedom of expression and anchoring confidence in plurality is the very condition of a vibrant and resilient democracy.

Thank you all very much.