CNews petition passes one million signatures ahead of Tuesday vote

A petition calling for CNews to be removed from French audiovisual media has surpassed one million signatures. It was launched in June by an individual on the National Assembly's platform and compares the channel to a propaganda machine and to the American network Fox News. Support surged after a racist attack in Trappes on October 23, and the petition crossed the 500,000-signature threshold on November 2.

The petition now triggers a decision by lawmakers scheduled for Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. The cultural affairs committee of the National Assembly will vote either to dismiss the request or to organize a debate in the assembly chamber. Alexandre Portier, the committee's rapporteur and president, proposed the review.

“This support for employees cannot be interpreted as adherence to the channel's orientations.”

If lawmakers choose to examine the petition, the committee can publish a report containing the request's text and a summary of its debates. It may also involve the first signatories in its work. A subsequent debate in the chamber would not necessarily include a vote and would carry limited scope.

Past petitions that passed the 500,000-signature threshold show mixed results. Only one, opposing the Duplomb law, led to a chamber debate after collecting more than two million signatures. Two others, concerning an antisemitism bill and a bill on the legitimate use of firearms by police, were dismissed because lawmakers considered a debate redundant with parliamentary examination.

The Libres de Canal+ union, representing staff within the group that owns CNews, regretted the channel's deviations in a statement on Friday. The union said it supports CNews employees daily but stressed that this support should not be interpreted as approval of the channel's editorial line.