Speech by Roch-Olivier Maistre at the 8th REFRAM conference

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Minister, Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic of Senegal,

Mr. Chairman of the Conseil national de régulation de l'audiovisuel and Vice-Chairman of the Conseil national de régulation de l'audiovisuel
of REFRAM,

Mr President of the Network of African Regulatory Authorities for Audiovisual Media
communication, President of the Haute Autorité de l'audiovisuel et de la communication de
Côte d'Ivoire

Mr. Director of Political Affairs and Democratic Governance of
Organisation internationale de la Francophone,

Ladies and Gentlemen, Presidents of the REFRAM member authorities,

And all of you, Ladies and Gentlemen, in your ranks and capacities,

Dear friends,

I am delighted to see us here in Dakar, gathered for this 8th Conference of the
presidents of the French-speaking Network of Media Regulators, which you have entrusted to me.
presidency in October 2022. This is a very special moment for me, as I'm coming to
the end of my term as Chairman of REFRAM, of course, but also of my term as Chairman of REFRAM.
Arcom, which comes to an end in the next few days.

I will then have the honor of handing over the reins of Arcom to my successor,
Mr. Martin AJDARI, whom you will have the opportunity to meet in the coming months. And from
tomorrow, I will hand over the reins of REFRAM to Mr. Mamadou Oumar NDIAYE,
whom I would like to thank most sincerely, for he has accepted the challenge of taking over the management of REFRAM.
welcome us to Dakar for such an important event in the life of our network.

I would also like to thank my predecessor, Mr. Nouri LAJMI, former president of the
Independent High Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HAICA) of Tunisia, and the
outgoing Vice-Chairman, Mr Babacar DIAGNE, former Chairman of the Conseil national de
régulation de l'audiovisuel du Sénégal (CNRA). Their support and friendship have been very important to me.
in my role as President of our Network.

Over the past two years, our Network has focused on the challenges and issues of
posed by major digital platforms in the French-speaking world. Visit
development of online services, accentuated by their availability everywhere, all the time,
for everyone, has led to an exponential growth in the amount of content available online.
whether legal or unlawful, beneficial or harmful to our societies and to our planet.
public life.

As we have often pointed out and observed, media regulators have been quick to take action.
on the front line, drawing on their expertise and experience in the field of media regulation.
audiovisuel regulation, to lay the foundations for digital regulation.

We have taken note of this in our Network's 2022-2024 roadmap. The theme of our
7th Presidents' Conference in Paris, "Adapting regulation to the challenges ahead
of digital platforms".

An essential step was taken at the joint conference of REFRAM and
Réseau des instances africaines de régulation de la communication (RIARC), which took place in Paris.
in Abidjan on April 23 and 24, 2024. Our two networks thus engaged in a strengthening dialogue
with four very large platforms - Google, Meta, TikTok and X - which have signed or endorsed
a protocol of commitment to contribute to the advent of a digital space
on the African continent and in the French-speaking world.

I would like to thank all the members of the two networks, and in particular
my friends Latifa AKHARBACH and René BOURGOIN, for their mobilization and their support which
this joint success.

In line with the commitment protocol, whose key elements it takes up, the call to
Villers-Cotterêts, adopted by the Heads of State and Government at the French
Francophonie Summit on October 4, 2024, enshrined the work of our network and gave it a new dimension.
unprecedented foundation. We can be proud of this: this support at the highest level of the authorities
of our respective countries is a token of recognition and a guarantee of success for
REFRAM's future actions.

It is now up to us to translate these commitments into concrete action, with a view to
the virtuous regulation scheme we all so earnestly summon,
involving all the stakeholders concerned: governments, industry players
regulatory authorities, the scientific and academic worlds, society at large and the media.
and citizens-users of online platforms.

The upcoming launch of the forum dedicated to following up the commitments made in Abidjan by the
platforms in Abidjan will enable us to measure the progress made by these
exchange of information and best practices between regulators. What remains
the future forum and how it will operate, which will be a major challenge.
which will be the subject of the first thematic session of our conference.

I'd like to wish Mr Mamadou Oumar NDIAYE, who will be taking over from me, all the best for the future.
tomorrow as Chairman of REFRAM. In particular, he will have the task of pursuing
further the dialogue between French-speaking regulators and platforms, with the
support of all network members. I am convinced that REFRAM will be able to
continue to work effectively towards ever closer cooperation between its
members, for greater international visibility, and for the advent of a European
and trustworthy digital space.

I would like to thank you for your attention, and wish you a wonderful conference.