Crime, terror, immigration: France through the eyes of its ‘Fox News’

Should France scrap quotas for 20-25 per cent social housing in cities? It’s 5.59am and the question kicks off the day’s agenda on the channel known as France’s equivalent of Fox News: CNews, which became the country’s most-watched 24-hour news channel last year and is seen as boosting the chances of the far right winning the 2027 presidential election.Watching a full day of the channel’s coverage reveals a perception of a France in crisis.It’s Monday, September 14th, and the candidate leading in polls, Marine Le Pen, has just announced a series of policy ideas in a start-of-term speech.READ MOREHer pledge to end social housing quotas kicks off the channel’s signature format: news reports, followed by right-wing commentary.“It’s a strong position taken by Marine Le Pen, and it’s interesting from a political point of view,” CNews journalist Thomas Bonnet tells the viewers.Social housing is used by a “small group of individuals, the elites” to influence election results, he says. CNews is regularly credited with an influence that extends far beyond its average audience share of 3.4 per cent. Photograph: Getty “There are many cities, many elected officials who deliberately put in more social housing because generally, social housing is associated with voting for the left.”The next items on the programme – social unrest, left-wing media bias, jihadist terrorism, left-wing activists accused of fomenting violence against the police – will be returned to repeatedly as discussion topics throughout the day.Is it racist to stipulate that French nationals be given priority in social services such as housing? The question kicks off the start of the following programme, The Experts’ Hour.Known as the “national preference” or “national priority”, the idea has long been a key idea of Le Pen’s.“The proportion of foreigners in social housing is phenomenal, excessive,” guest commentator Éric Naulleau says.Philippe Ballard, a spokesman and lawmaker for Le Pen’s National Rally party, tells the discussion that 30 per cent of social housing is occupied by foreigners while he claims to know police and prison officers who are “sleeping in their cars”.“No, the national priority is not racist,” host Pascal Praud says. “All this is common sense ... Anyone who says that is labelled a fascist or a racist. It’s really unpleasant to be constantly insulted.”Vincent Bolloré's holdings include leading magazines, radio stations, television channels and a publisher Photograph: Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg The channel is part of the media empire of Vincent Bolloré, a conservative French billionaire sometimes compared to Australian-American news and television mogul Rupert Murdoch.Over the years, Bolloré has gradually built up vast holdings that include leading magazines, radio stations, television channels and a leading publisher.When questioned by lawmakers in the Paris parliament about accusations of right-wing bias in 2024, he said he imposed no “ideology” on his network and that its interest was only in “telling the truth”.Yet CNews is regularly credited with driving the news agenda and contributing to a rightward shift in French politics, with an influence that extends far beyond its average audience share of 3.4 per cent.A former regular pundit on the channel, Philippe Bilger, whose appearances ended after he criticised Israel and defended the judiciary for convicting former prime minister Nicolas Sarkozy of criminal conspiracy, recently told Reuters news agency that CNews was aiming to “cash in” under a right-wing government if Le Pen is elected.Another far-right politician, Éric Zemmour, who is expected to launch a presidential campaign, built an audience on the channel as an editor and panellist on one of its shows. One of its flagship programmes is 100% Borders, running from 11am to 1pm Monday to Friday with a panel discussion of issues relating to immigration and a perceived societal crisis.Today, the show is playing a loop of footage of badly littered streets and casual vendors in the neighbourhood of Château Rouge in the north of Paris.“These are neighbourhoods that are no longer French, that are no longer Parisian,” guest Jules Torres says. “This is a neighbourhood that has been affected, it must be said, by massive immigration.”Host Erik Tegnér, a right-wing activist with strong family connections to the French far-right and who has become a rising star of the network, jumps in to defend Torres from any eventual accusations of racism.The Paris Chinatown doesn’t suffer from the same issues, Tegnér says. “It has to do with a certain type of immigration,” he says. The inability to manage rubbish disposal is the sign “of a developing country”.Throughout the day the channel returns to a series of themes: that left-wing activists have condoned violence against police and threaten social unrest if Le Pen wins the election; that radicalised Muslims are “grenades” waiting to explode in France; and that pensioners are set to be targeted to pay for France’s budget.One commentator derisively refers to the “champagne socialist left”. Another warns against La France Insoumise, the hard-left movement led by firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who polls indicate may be Le Pen’s opponent in a one-on-one presidential election second round.“These people are dangerous, I repeat it systematically, it is chaos that they want to instil,” the panellist says.A dominant story today is a controversy over political bias within the media.Employees at a publicly funded radio station, France Inter, are in revolt against a decision by management to give a weekly slot to an editor of a magazine perceived to be far-right. Staff have threatened to go on strike.“The politically correct Parisian media bubble ... the supreme out-of-touch know-it-alls ... they believe they are siding against the far right, a term which today includes everything not subject to ideological brainwashing,” Bonnet says.“The small media community is panicking for a very simple reason: it is losing control of the narrative. Despite decades of pouring their ideology into every column, every broadcast, every radio news flash, it no longer works.”He goes on to suggest that the future of public media itself may not be guaranteed.“The French may be tired of paying €4 billion to see themselves not represented at all on the airwaves,” Bonnet says.France’s funding for public broadcasters is a long-held bugbear of the channel owner and media mogul, Bolloré.Supporters, though, believe it merely champions under-served points of view.A woman wears a sticker reading 'Stop CNews – no racism on TV' at a rally to launch the campaign of leftist presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. Photograph: Adnan Farzat/Getty Others see the channel as deliberately amplifying far-right talking points ahead of the election as a commercial strategy, perhaps with an eye to winning more broadcasting licences under a right-wing government.Relations with current French authorities and the government can be fraught. Investigators opened an inquiry into possible hate speech following comments by panellists about Bally Bagayoko, a recently elected black mayor of a Paris suburb.This summer, French authorities expelled a prominent commentator on Bolloré’s media channels from the country. Xenia Fedorova, the former head of the French-language edition of Russia’s state news network Russia Today, was accused by French interior minister Laurent Nuñez of being a “conduit for disinformation campaigns orchestrated by the Russian authorities”.Fedorova was known for commentary defending Russia’s actions in Ukraine and was accused of promoting a broader pro-Kremlin editorial line on CNews. This was rejected by Bolloré’s channels, which condemned her expulsion as an attack on freedom of speech.After Nuñez warned the channel of the risk of criminal sanctions if Fedorova reappeared on the channel, a scheduled appearance by the interior minister on one of its programmes appeared to be cancelled.CNews parent group, Groupe Canal+, did not respond to a request for comment.[ Naomi O'Leary: The Hibernophile holding France’s purse strings at a critical momentOpens in new window ]