Lyon (AFP)

Employees of the European television channel Euronews, headquartered in Lyon, began a 24-hour strike on Tuesday to denounce the job cuts announced in November, union sources have learned.

"This is the first inter-union strike in the company and there is a great mobilization in all services," Christelle Petrongari, SNJ delegate journalist told AFP.

About fifty employees gathered in front of the chain's headquarters in the morning at the call of the intersyndicale SNJ, CFE-CGC, SNRT-CGT, SNJ-CGT "to protest against job cuts and budget restrictions ".

The chairman of the management board, Michael Peters, presented trade unions with a plan to redeploy staff in mid-November in the face of a loss of advertising revenue linked to the Covid-19 health crisis.

"It is expected that around 30 to 40 people will leave the company, once the PSE (Job Protection Plan) process is completed," a Euronews spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The private news channel "currently employs around 500 permanent staff. New jobs are also being created" to support digital development, he added.

These jobs "are offered in priority to staff members whose current positions are affected by the departure plan".

For Ms. Petrongari, "it is a purely economic plan (...). Since the start of the PES negotiations, no union proposal has been accepted," she lamented.

"We do not want layoffs or so in very limited numbers."

"We do not have strike culture at Euronews, but the situation is alarming. We are being asked to do more with much less," said Cécile Marion, CGT delegate, for her part.

SNJ Euronews also says it is "worried about the disappearance of the Turkish-language service, one of the few free Turkish-speaking media".

This service, not concerned by the PES, is threatened for lack of external funding.

The Italian language service must go digital.

"We are a multilingual company, a Tower of Babel, and we want to remain a reference in the European media landscape," insists the journalist SNJ.

In 2017, the international channel had already abandoned its traditional multiplex to offer twelve language channels, each with its own editorial logic.

The group had on this occasion recorded 90 departures.

© 2021 AFP