The blue radio is tapped on the fingers.
This Friday, Europe 1 received a warning from the audiovisual regulator, Arcom (the new name of the CSA), for not having respected the equality of speaking times between candidates before the first round of the presidential election. .
In this "formal notice" (which serves as a warning before possible sanctions), Arcom points to "numerous breaches of the obligation of equality", stressing that "candidates and their supporters have benefited from unequal speaking time and airtime” in the period from March 28 to April 8.
During this period, the rule of strict equality applied, calculated over four periods (morning, day, evening, night).
Philippe Poutou at the bottom of the ranking
For example, on the morning segment, the speaking times recorded on Europe 1 (Lagardère group controlled by Vincent Bolloré) were 22 minutes for Anne Hidalgo or 27 minutes for Jean Lassalle against 35 minutes for Marine Le Pen, 36 minutes for Eric Zemmour and 37 minutes for Nathalie Arthaud.
During the day, Arcom recorded speaking times ranging from 16 minutes for Jean Lassalle to 28 minutes for Marine Le Pen.
In the evening, speaking times could, for example, range from 6 minutes for Nicolas Dupont-Aignan to almost 8 minutes for Yannick Jadot and more than 8 minutes for Emmanuel Macron.
The candidate who received the least speaking time in all sections was Philippe Poutou, but the radio "indicated [that he] had refused to intervene on his antenna during this period", indicates Arcom.
“Relatively low” differences for Europe 1
The same disparities are observed for the airtime of the candidates.
This broader data includes the word of the candidate and everything around it, such as the description by a journalist of a meeting for example.
To justify its formal notice, Arcom indicates that it had previously sent Europe 1 a "firm warning" for "shortcomings" in the distribution of speaking time during the period from January 1 to March 7.
Asked by AFP, Europe 1 considered “relatively low” the differences noted by Arcom between the average speaking times per candidate.
"On the morning, the average speaking time observed is 30 minutes," added the radio.
“Arcom accuses us of having exposed Nathalie Arthaud for 37 minutes.
We would like to point out that we have taken care to invite all the candidates to the same section dedicated to the presidential system, ”she continued.
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