Several dozen Canal + employees gathered in support of Stéphane Guy.

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Thomas COEX / AFP

The indignation does not weaken.

The face covered with a mask bearing the effigy of Stéphane Guy, several dozen Canal + employees participated on Tuesday in an anonymous and silent rally in front of the channel's headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt in support of the recently sacked commentator, noted an AFP photographer.

Stéphane Guy, 23 years old at Canal and flagship voice of French football, was fired on Christmas Eve for having supported the comedian Sébastien Thoen, himself fired in early December for a parody targeting CNews, the news channel of the group, whose parent company Vivendi is controlled by billionaire Vincent Bolloré.

"All potential Stéphane Guy"

The demonstrators, mainly from the sports editorial staff, gathered for ten minutes in front of the premises of the encrypted channel at the gates of Paris without speaking or showing their faces to "signify" that they are "all Stéphane Guy potential, all likely to be sanctioned, improperly dismissed, for a crooked word, a friendly greeting to a colleague on the air, ”according to a statement.

"We would like to be able to express ourselves freely, with our face uncovered, but the prevailing climate of fear and repeated intimidation prevent us from doing so", add the authors of the press release, reaffirming their "attachment to freedom of expression".

"This press release and this gathering were both a support, a goodbye and a message" sent to management, according to an employee of the Canal + group who requested anonymity.

"Repeated attacks on freedom of expression"

This initiative is in addition to the many support already shown for Stéphane Guy since Christmas.

A petition calling for his reinstatement had thus collected nearly 6,000 signatures on Tuesday afternoon, two weeks after its launch by two subscribing fans of Canal + on the Change.org site.

In a column published at the end of December in

Le Monde

, the coach and former international footballer Paul Le Guen addressed himself directly to Vincent Bolloré to contest the ousting of the “best football commentator” he knows.

+ Libres, the first union of the Canal + group, was said to be "indignant and shocked" by this dismissal, "both in substance and in form", the Society of Journalists (SDJ) of Canal + deploring for its part "attacks repeated to freedom of expression ”.

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