By Christina Maas – Reclaim The Net
Emmanuel Macron thinks the Republic needs a quality seal for reality. The French president recently proposed creating an official “reliability label” for news outlets, modeled on Reporters Without Borders’ Journalism Trust Initiative. He insists it is not censorship. It is a “democratic duty.”
“It is about making our young people understand, encouraging them, motivating them to turn toward press outlets, whether in physical, printed form or digital,” Macron said, as though the French youth were a flock that had wandered into the dangerous fields of the internet and needed shepherding back to Le Monde.
The proposal, presented during a discussion with readers of the Ebra press group, called for a label for outlets that follow ethical standards, validated by “peers and third-party experts.”
The government, he said, would not decide who qualifies. It would only “encourage” such standards. But in France, the words “encourage” and “government” often mean something closer to “mandatory, eventually.”
The model is RSF’s Journalism Trust Initiative, which already certifies media that meet certain requirements. Certified outlets supposedly even get algorithmic advantages on platforms like Bing.
Macron wants a French version, claiming it would bring “international recognition of the professionalism of our journalists and the rigour of our editorial teams.”
Translated from technocrat to plain French: good media will rise to the top, bad media will sink to the digital basement.
This, Macron says, will help fight “disinformation.” The country has heard that promise before. Each new attempt to fight misinformation seems to end up tightening control over information itself.
The idea landed with the subtlety of a brick through a newsroom window.
On BFMTV, Parliamentary Party Leader of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen called it “unworthy,” said the proposal was “extremely dangerous,” accusing Macron of wanting “to master information.”
Bruno Retailleau, leader of Les Républicains, said “no government has the right to filter the media or dictate the truth.”
The Mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard, said the president had “crossed a fundamental line.” Even some journalists balked at being graded by a system endorsed by the state.
Macron denied everything. “There is not going to be a state label, and even less a ‘ministry of truth,’” said government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon after the cabinet meeting.
Macron repeated that “it is not the state that should verify” the truth, since “otherwise it becomes a dictatorship.”
So far, the reassurance has not worked. The term “Ministry of Truth” is now glued to the project in every headline, thanks in part to a viral editorial by Pascal Praud on CNews, who accused the president of “wanting to impose a single narrative.”
In a remarkable act of irony, the Élysée responded to critics on X by posting a video labeled “warning, false information.”
The president’s communications team, while denying the existence of a Ministry of Truth, had just produced something that looked exactly like one.
The post set off another round of outrage.
Jordan Bardella, President of the National Rally, said Macron’s proposal was “the reflex of a man who has lost power and seeks to maintain it by controlling information.”
The label plan is part of Macron’s wider campaign against disinformation. He has floated legal changes to allow “false information” to be blocked online more quickly and has repeatedly called for tighter regulation of social media, describing the current state of the internet as “the Wild West.”
It is not hard to see why the issue obsesses him. Macron and his wife have been the targets of online rumors for years.
For a president who sees himself as a technocratic reformer, the swamp of digital conspiracy has become both a personal irritant and a political threat.
Macron insists that only a system of certified journalism can protect the public from manipulation. The trouble is, the public does not want the government or anyone tied to it certifying which journalists to trust.
Reporters Without Borders may be an NGO, but any system announced by the president and promoted as a matter of “democratic duty” will carry the scent of state authority.
Once the government endorses a “trust” label, those without it become, by definition, untrustworthy.