Paris (AFP)
MEPs completed and adopted Thursday evening in committee the sensitive audiovisual reform project, which affects public sector companies such as video platforms, and will be examined by the Assembly from March 31.
Prepared for more than two years, this text presented by the Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, aims in particular to harmonize the legal framework between traditional platforms and channels, and plans to regroup the public audiovisual in an umbrella society.
On its first part, relating to "support for French industry and the protection of French copyright", the Assembly's Cultural Affairs Committee, which has been examining the bill since the beginning of the week , adopted a plethora of amendments, sometimes against the advice of the Minister. The general rapporteur Aurore Bergé (LREM), for example, clarified "proportional remuneration for the benefit of performers".
Concerning the regulation part, the deputies added missions to the future authority Arcom, which must merge Hadopi and CSA: its supervisory power will be particularly strengthened in the fight against discrimination and the representation of the diversity of French society.
All the political groups supported the addition of measures concerning the connected speakers: Arcom will have to verify the obligation of respect for the integrity of the contents diffused. And users must be able to configure them in order to choose the source of the content disseminated and their hierarchy.
Arcom will also have to control the prohibition of the practice called "coercive publishing" or "copyright grabbing" by certain broadcasters or audiovisual producers.
The future authority will also have to promote codes of good conduct in order to reduce the advertising of products having a negative impact on the environment.
The third and last part of the bill concerns the governance of public broadcasting. The deputies added the entertainment and still the construction of an "ecological conscience", in the list of the missions of the companies of the audio-visual public.
They will have to publish each year a report analyzing the integration by their advertising agencies of the ecological transition issues, by virtue of an amendment brought by Matthieu Orphelin (Libertés et territories, ex-LREM).
Finally, the deputies inserted into the text the whole of the LREM bill establishing a legal framework for videos depicting "influencer" children on the internet, which had been adopted in mid-February at first reading by the Assembly. Thus these measures can be implemented more quickly.
© 2020 AFP