Post by Martin Ajdari, President of Arcom

Arcom is regularly acknowledged for its censorship, or on the contrary for its passivity, and often for both. I wanted to clarify the terms of our action in the light of two recent events - one concerning our control of plurality, where our supposed inaction has been challenged; the other, where we have been accused of infringing freedom of expression and the rights of the defense, following two sanctions imposed by Arcom on a news channel.

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Arcom, the independent audiovisuel and digital regulation authority, regularly finds itself under fire from simultaneous criticisms of laxity and censorship. It's almost consubstantial with the role of "audiovisuel policeman", to which our mission is sometimes wrongly reduced: some demand that we silence voices that displease them, while others invoke an absolute vision of freedom of expression even when the limits of the law are crossed.

Two recent events illustrate this.

The first concerns a summary proceedings action brought before the Conseil d'Etat and reported in Libération on March 5, 2026, seeking to have the Conseil, as a matter of urgency, force Arcom to take action against the CNews channel, on the grounds of a lack of plurality. Since the Conseil d'Etat issued a ruling in 2024, Arcom has not only been required to check that political figures are given equal airtime during and outside election periods (which is not at issue here). However, from now on, it must also ensure that there is no "manifest and lasting imbalance" in the overall expression of currents of thought and opinion by all speakers.

This latter task is a complex one, because while speaking time can be measured objectively, it is methodologically tricky to characterize a clear imbalance in the expression of currents of thought and opinion, without "fingering" on-air contributors by sticking a political label on them. We've been working on this, in conjunction with TV and radio providers, for over a year.

Arcom has been accused of "abandoning its duties" on the grounds that it has indicated that it will rule on this issue not on its own initiative, but as of submissions of a case before the court. And yet, while acting on submission of a case before the court is not a legal obligation, it has been Arcom's practice for several years, and has the merit of avoiding any suspicion of arbitrariness in the selection of the cases we hear, particularly as this is a recent rule that we have only been implementing since 2024.

The opposite would mean monitoring all channels, all the time, which would be a major intrusion into freedoms and a challenge in terms of resources, bearing in mind that we only have around ten agents to carry out all the tasks relating to compliance with the channels' obligations in terms of plurality and ethics of information. On the other hand, we are very open to external submissions, and we do not systematically rule out the admissibility of imprecise or clumsy submissions as long as they are well-founded - which is not the case, for example, when it comes to the admissibility of complaints by the courts concerning press offences.

Generally speaking, our mission as an independent authority is first and foremost to preserve freedom of communication, in the face of any temptation to exert external pressure, while ensuring that the audiovisual media, which occupy the public space, abide by the rules laid down by law and the agreements concluded with Arcom when radio frequencies have been allocated to them. When a breach of these rules is brought to our attention (which happens several tens of thousands of times a year, over hundreds of broadcasts), we investigate it and decide whether to intervene with the broadcasters, or even impose sanctions. All our decisions, including those not to intervene, are subject to appeal to the Conseil d'Etat.

With regard to a publisher's compliance with its plurality obligations, in application of the Council's new 2024 jurisprudence, we received a submission of a case before the court from Reporters sans frontières (RSF) at the end of January, and we have organized ourselves to investigate it rigorously, with due respect for the adversarial process, as we say publicly. Without prejudging the outcome of this investigation, the idea that we are failing in our mission is unfounded.

I would add that we are continuing to monitor the balance of speaking time during the municipal election campaign, with all the responsiveness that implies, and that I have signed dozens of letters reminding publishers of their obligations, which they respect in the vast majority of cases. All decisions and statements relating to speaking time are available on the Arcom website.

The second illustration of these sometimes contradictory injunctions addressed to us was the subject of an article in Le Figaro on March 12, 2026 ("When will Arcom stop confusing the fight against discrimination with the thought police?"), in which we questioned one of the two legal sanctions for lack of on-air control following incitement to hatred, which we recently adopted and published. The author of the article, who made the comments on air that led to the sanction, criticizes Arcom for not having heard her personally in the adversarial process preceding the sanction, and for being held to account for the derogatory comments she was personally subjected to (on social networks) following the publication of this decision.

On the substance of the case, you can make up your own mind by browsing the decision in question. In any case, it is important to emphasize that our decisions are not aimed at the authors of on-air comments, and do not restrict their freedom of expression. They are aimed at channels which, when comments in breach of their obligations have been made by any on-air contributor, fail in their duty to "control the airwaves". They are only issued after a previous formal notice on the same grounds (itself generally preceded by warnings), and are subject to an adversarial procedure allowing the channel to put forward its arguments, and may be appealed when they are found to be prejudicial. It was in this context that the Arcom board took note of the author's arguments and the explanation of her intention, before taking its decision in full knowledge of the facts. From the point of view of Arcom's mission, the issue at stake is not the identity of the author, nor his or her background, nor the intention behind the sanctioned comments; it is the comments made on the air and therefore received by the public. And, when these comments clearly infringe the channel's obligations, the channel's ability to control the airwaves.

More often than not, the Arcom board decides to publish its legal sanctions decisions, in the interests of transparency and public information, though we refrain from naming the authors of contentious comments. However, this does not prevent the public or the press from identifying them, notably by broadcasting the footage justifying the channel's sanction.

More broadly, these two examples show how the complexity of our mission exposes us every day to criticism - sound in principle - from those on both sides who see us alternately as a passive accomplice to excesses in the exercise of freedom of expression, and as its biased censor. Perhaps this symmetry is the sign of a certain balance.