French TV station fined $100,000 for saying abortion is the world's biggest cause of death

A French television station has been fined more than $100,000 and forced to apologize after accurately reporting that abortion is the world's leading cause of death.

“It was an entire month of censorship, a combination of penalties and coercion of speech,” said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.

fetal position

According to the European Conservative Journal,

In February 2024, on the Catholic program “En quête d'esprit” broadcast every Sunday on the conservative channel CNews, host Aymeric Pourbet aired an infographic about causes of death, highlighting abortion as the main cause of death. It said that the number of deaths in each case reached 73 million people. year around the world. This accounts for 52% of annual deaths, far exceeding cancer (10 million) and smoking (6.2 million).

The journalist's comments sparked a wave of outrage in the mainstream press, arguing that abortion cannot be considered a “cause of death” because a fetus should not be considered a living thing.

Within days of the broadcast, the Council of State, one of France's highest courts, asked the Audiovisual and Digital Communications Regulatory Authority (ARCOM) to investigate CNews over its lack of “pluralism.”

European conservatives explained:

In France, television channels are subject to rules governing the allocation of speaking time between political parties, especially during election periods. Media airtime should be divided as follows: One-third goes to the government, one-third goes to the majority, and one-third goes to the opposition. During election periods, channels must give speaking time to political parties according to their election results in past elections.

The State Council argued that the speaking hours of CNews personalities, who are journalists and columnists, should be similarly regulated. In other words, if Pourbaix spent 10 minutes reporting a pro-life story, a pro-abortion spokesperson should be given 10 minutes to make the opposite argument. Never mind the fact that CNews and another channel, C8, are owned not by the state but by Catholic businessman Vincent Bolloré.

Ironically, CNews actually gave more airtime to different factions during the 2022 parliamentary elections than any other channel, mostly government-owned. The latter, unsurprisingly, featured primarily left-wing commentators.

true result

French television's commitment to “pluralism” has reached its limits. Although the government claims (despite evidence to the contrary) that it wants to broadcast a wide range of ideologies, it seems satisfied that the range of issues actually being discussed is limited.

The European Conservative Party pointed out that:

CNews' success comes from its ability to combine two forms of pluralism. Pluralism of ideas — on this channel you'll hear perspectives you won't hear anywhere else — and pluralism of subject matter. In fact, Cnews is the only channel that talks about security, immigration, borders and justice, even though these issues that affect the daily lives of millions of French people are carefully avoided on the public broadcaster .

In fact, the country will be severely criticized if it allows CNews to cover issues that the government never wants to discuss. Therefore, following numerous public attacks on Pourbaix's infographic, CNews felt compelled to apologize for broadcasting it and for hurting some people's feelings in doing so. But that wasn't enough to satisfy ARCOM. The agency ultimately fined CNews more than $100,000, alleging that the channel failed in its “duties of honesty and rigor in the presentation and processing of information.”

“Abortion cannot be the cause of death,” ARCOM declared.

In the magazine Valeur Actuel, Jean-Marie Le Menet, president of the pro-life organization Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, wrote of the ARCOM decree:

Equating an aborted child with the dead makes abortion a murderous act. Just as you can have an abortion with a clear conscience, it is forbidden to say that abortion takes life. Otherwise, the keystone of the system will collapse. But who will believe this fiction?

The left actually does, or at least pretends to do so, but given the opportunity, it will not even allow itself to present an alternative perspective to the public.

censorship overload

Of course, as Mr. Turley pointed out;

France continues to expand laws restricting free speech, leading the way in the decline of free speech in the Western world. These laws criminalize speech based on vague criteria of “inciting” or “threatening” others on the basis of race or religion. For example, fashion designer John Galliano was found guilty by a French court of making anti-Semitic remarks to at least three people in a Parisian bar. During sentencing, Judge Anne-Marie Sotolow read out a list of epithets Galliano had used against Geraldine Block and Philippe Virgitti, including using the term “dirty whore” in the criticism. Ta.

In another case, the father of France's conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was sentenced to a fine for calling the Roma minority “stinky”. A French teenager has been charged with criticizing Islam as a “religion of hate”.

Christianity, on the other hand, is a major target, as are centre-right opinions. The European Conservative Party reported that CNews and C8 are “the only channels in France that have so far been subject to financial penalties.”

However, all is not lost. According to Dominique Rainier, a political scientist for the European Conservative Party,

I am sure that the public opinion control that the State Council is trying to introduce will not last long. Because it would be impossible and the pressure would be too great to do so at a time when a political system in crisis requires more controversy and debate. More than ever.

The website claims that “history has already shown that censorship is not sustainable in the long term.”