“They are untouchable and think they own the radio”: France Inter employees pressure management to ban right-wing columnist

Radio France unions have filed a strike notice for Sunday, Sept. 13, and Monday, Sept. 14, after failing to secure the removal of Charles Sapin, a columnist from the right-wing magazine Valeurs Actuelles, from France Inter.

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A radio group is not run by checking names off a list.

Sapin’s name did not come up directly during Radio France’s new-season press conference on Thursday. Instead, group president Sibyle Veil defended keeping the deputy director of Valeurs Actuelles on the air. “A radio group is not run by checking names off a list,” she said, citing other personalities whose removal she had previously been asked to support, including Patrick Cohen, Sophia Aram and Alain Finkielkraut.

Veil said Radio France had sometimes decided to part ways with personalities when it considered that decision justified, but never under outside pressure. She described the broadcaster as “an open, independent and impartial house.”

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It happened that we decided to part ways with one personality or another for a decision we considered justified, but we never did so under outside pressure.

The dispute comes amid a tense start to the season at France Inter, with unions pressing management over the presence of a right-wing editorial writer and preparing industrial action. The controversy places the station’s claims of editorial independence against demands from employees and unions for a different decision.

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An open, independent and impartial house.