France TV sentenced for broadcasting images of Yvan Colonna's attack

Rémi Jacob, with AFP 11:29 am, May 26, 2023

France Télévisions was sentenced Thursday by the criminal court of Paris to a fine of 1,500 euros suspended for the broadcast in the television news of France 3 Corsica of photos of the assault of Yvan Colonna, in prison in March 2022. The report was broadcast fifteen days after his attack in Arles prison - where he was serving a life sentence for the murder of the prefect Claude Erignac - by Franck Elong Abé, a prisoner convicted in a terrorist case.

The report would have no "contribution" in terms of information

The report showed screenshots from the prison's CCTV, in a "raw and uncontextualized" way, "in an obvious search for sensationalism", said the court in its decision. If Yvan Colonna was not "identifiable" on the images, "the evocative force" of the shots, helped by the editing of the subject, "is no less real", also says the decision, which judges that the report has no "contribution" in terms of information. The report was posted on the France 3 website but was removed after about thirty minutes.

France Télévisions, via its boss Delphine Ernotte, the editorial director of France 3 Corse and the two authors of the subject appeared on March 15 for "publication of acts of criminal procedure before their reading in public hearing" or complicity in this offense.

France Télévisions and the two journalists who wrote the subject were sentenced to a suspended fine of 1,500 euros. They will also have to pay a total of 9,000 euros in damages to the relatives of the Corsican activist who had filed civil suits.

The editorial director of France 3 Corsica was released. Contacted by AFP, France Télévisions did not wish to react. Marie-Laure Barré, lawyer for the widow and one of the sons of the victim, welcomed this sentence, recalling that the "viewing of these images had been of great violence" for his clients.