"BFM is a victim in this story, when one of ours short-circuits the hierarchical chain, that poses a problem", reacted Wednesday the director general of the info channel, Marc-Olivier Fogiel, on France Inter, after having ordered a internal investigation in January and suspended the 54-year-old journalist.

According to the investigation by the collective of journalists Forbidden Stories, to which the investigation unit of Radio France and Le Monde contributed for France, this affair is a small part of a vast disinformation enterprise piloted by an Israeli pharmacy, which would sell its services in the whole world.

This company, without legal existence, nicknamed "Team Jorge" by journalists because of the pseudonym of one of its leaders, Tal Hanan, is made up of former members of the Israeli security services, according to the revelations of the collective, broadcast by thirty international media.

"Vague"

Three members of Forbidden Stories, a journalist from Radio France, one from the Israeli daily Haaretz and another from the Israeli newspaper The Marker, posed as potential clients to collect information on "Team Jorge" for several months.

Its manager told them, with demonstration in support, to be able to automatically create fake online accounts, automatically generate content on social networks or hack emails or Telegram accounts, in order to influence electoral campaigns in particular.

The part of the case that concerns BFMTV concerns briefs broadcast as part of the nightly newspaper presented by Rachid M'Barki.

These briefs related to the Russian oligarchs, in Qatar, in Sudan, in Cameroon, or even in Western Sahara and would have been "provided turnkey on behalf of foreign clients", according to the investigative consortium.

The first news channel in France had opened an internal investigation in January due to suspicions against Rachid M'Barki.

Its conclusions are not yet known.

According to Mr. Fogiel, the presenter "managed to ask for (some) images at the last minute" to illustrate briefs, "once the editor-in-chief was taken on another installment and had validated all of his newspaper" .

"The editorial staff is shocked and shaken but continues to do its job with the same rigor", commented the SDJ (Society of Journalists) of BFMTV, questioned by AFP.

She lamented "the ever-increasing activism of disinformation companies that are creating haziness and undermining people's trust in the media."

"Head held high"

Questioned at the beginning of February by the Politico site, which had revealed its implicated, Mr. M'Barki had admitted to having "used information which (him) came from informants" and which "did not necessarily follow the usual course of writing".

"They were all real and verified (...) I'm not ruling anything out, maybe I was tricked, I didn't feel like it was or that I was part of a fraud operation. I don't know what else I wouldn't have done it," he continued.

“I keep my head up!”, also assured the journalist of Moroccan origin in a message posted Friday on the social network Instagram.

Elegant appearance, salt and pepper hair and short beard, Rachid M'Barki is one of the historic faces of BFMTV.

On March 21, 2012, he wrongly announced on the air the arrest of the Islamist terrorist Mohammed Merah, holed up in his Toulouse apartment and surrounded by the Raid after his attacks.

The Minister of the Interior at the time, Claude Guéant, denied this assertion, followed a little later by the channel itself.

Rachid M'Barki also presents on RMC Story the program "Bring in the accused", devoted to various facts.

© 2023 AFP