Gathered in an Extraordinary General Assembly on Thursday June 23, the four Societies of Journalists from the national newsrooms of France 2, France 3, France Info TV and franceinfo.fr, representing more than 500 journalists, decided to organize the vote on a motion of distrust of Laurent Guimier, director of information for the audiovisual group, on June 30. A decision that came after several days of tension.
Last Tuesday, the editorial staff met to discuss two problems according to them: first, the treatment of Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Ukraine, on June 16, which had been covered by Mohamed Bouhafsi on behalf of “C à vous” , program produced by Mediawan, an external company, and not by a journalist from the editorial staff. The concern, then, concerning the renewal of a certain number of CDD with the approach of the summer, in a context already considered degraded on the editorial level.
A trust broken by contradiction
Unusually according to journalists present, Laurent Guimier and Michel Dumoret, director of national editorial staff, came down to restore dialogue. “They then both recognized a missed concerning the presidential trip but not a scandal, and addressed the issue of human resources, reports a witness to the discussion. Michel Dumoret said he was fighting for the issue of fixed-term contracts, and saw good news. Laurent Guimier, for his part, conceded knowing that it was not possible to work with fewer people, and that there would therefore not be fewer in the services. They then undertook to review the writing two months later and to establish more regular meetings. “Statements that have calmed the spirits.
According to the Society of Journalists of France 2, it was the discovery that, ultimately, fixed-term contracts would not be renewed, which set fire to the powder on Thursday morning and led to the convening of the Extraordinary General Assembly. Beyond the specific case of the contracts, the confidence, already started for a few months with the drafting, was broken by the contradiction felt between the remarks of Tuesday and the facts of the following days.
Employees with a press card from France Télévisions will now be called, on June 30, to express themselves on this motion of no confidence, a priori by electronic vote. The information management of France Télévisions did not wish to speak.