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The "yellow vests", the French and the media

According to the La Croix-Kantar barometer of French confidence in the media, a majority of French people are not satisfied with the media treatment of the "yellow vests" crisis.

It is a survey that is scrutinized each year and gives the pulse of the confidence of the French in the media. In 2019, we see that television, like the press and the radio, reaches its lowest historical level since less than four in ten French consider it to be a reliable means of information. Interviewees believe that last year there was too much talk about the legacy of Johnny Halliday or the Benalla affair and not enough about the climate march. But it is especially on the media treatment of "yellow vests" that rubs. A majority of French people think that journalists have treated this movement badly, that the media have dramatized the event too much, or that they have left too much room for people who express an extreme point of view.

It is true that the "yellow vests" have given televisions the opportunity to extend the microphone to people we are not used to hearing. For Arnaud Mercier, a professor at the French Press Institute, there was no doubt a form of "bad conscience" on the part of the editors: they said to themselves, confusedly, that until now we did not see them very much. middle class people from roundabouts. And as they aroused great popular support, it was necessary to finally give them visibility. The Higher Audiovisual Council has noted in its barometer the diversity that, among the people we usually see on TV, three quarters are from the socio-professional higher category while it does not total than a large quarter of the population. And if we take people with precarious jobs, which are 11% of French, they are present only 0.7% on the small screen.

So how to re-build trust? Emmanuel Macron wants to do it by inviting himself in citizen debates or in front of local elected officials to explain his choices. The "yellow vests" reproach the news channels for leaving him open antenna, as they criticize these channels to focus on violence and not to promote their word. The media, they find that the "yellow vests" do not strongly condemn the attacks of journalists and broadcast infox on their Facebook accounts. However, these are not two irreconcilable edges. For what would be the political mobilization of "yellow vests" without its sounding media? And what would the credibility of the movement be if it did not interfere itself with countering false news such as the supposed death of a Belgian student? The media also benefit from their images.

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