Several dozen employees gathered in support of Stéphane Guy, with a mask in his effigy.
The flagship commentator of football matches was fired at the end of December for having paid tribute on the air to the comedian Sébastien Thoen, himself fired for a sketch parodying CNews, the news channel of the group controlled with an iron fist by billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
With their face covered with a mask bearing the effigy of Stéphane Guy, several dozen Canal + employees took part in an anonymous and silent rally on Tuesday in front of the channel's headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt in support of the recently sacked commentator, noted a 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.
The good atmosphere at the demonstration of the journalists of Canal + against the dismissal of #stephaneguy in front of the headquarters.
pic.twitter.com/a1IBjQgD5Z
- Garriberts (@Garriberts) January 5, 2021
"We would like to be able to express ourselves freely"
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 wrong 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 faces uncovered, but the prevailing climate of fear and repeated intimidation prevent us from doing so," added 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.
This initiative is in addition to the many support already shown for Stéphane Guy since Christmas.
A petition calling for his reinstatement thus collected nearly 6,000 signatures on Tuesday afternoon, two weeks after its launch by two Canal + subscribing fans on the Change.org site.
In a column published at the end of December in Le
Monde
, the coach and ex-international footballer Paul Le Guen spoke directly to Vincent Bolloré to challenge the ouster of the “best football commentator” he knows.
Free, the first union of the Canal + group, said it was "outraged and shocked" by this dismissal, "both in substance and in form", the Society of Journalists (SDJ) of Canal + deploring for its part "repeated attacks to freedom of expression ".