How servile is the media in France?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Well the affaire is all over the French press.

From the left, http://www.liberation.fr/affaire-bettencourt,99912,
to the statist right, http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/


It's the story of the year. It involves l'Oréal the cosmetics firm, the richest woman in France, a palace in Chantilly, a butler, mansion in Paris, Swiss bank accounts, a private island in the Indian Ocean, Picasso paintings, recorded secret conversations, tax evasion, tax negotiations with the minister, the minister's wife who works for the billionaire heiress, party donations, and....the Président.

But I'd wait for the movie if I were you.



Hannan levells two criticisms: one, that the French press is servile and aloof. Both of which are true, fair enough. Scandals do tend to break in the Swiss press, or the internets. But at the same time it is also true that both traits have a more positive side of the coin, the former, servility, as 'fortunately not interested in gossip / sex scandals / extramarital children / fun with cigars', and the latter, aloof, as 'pompous, intellectual and philosphically inclined - as befits the glamorous intellectual centre of Western thought'.

The other criticism of Hannan belongs to modern populist (rightist) discourse, not specific to the French press: 'do not trust the established press, instead, trust us, the ultrapartisan activist blogosphere, the one place where you'll hear the truth'.
The result of this are Wutmensch like Fragony. This criticism of Hannan I do not share. Of course, the more outside of mainstream one is politically positioned, the more the established press must look like one single monolith, all of the same political mind, servile to the established political order. The Western Communist press of old levelled the same criticism: the mass media are all obedient to, the servants of, the political status quo. It was bollox back then, and the current wave of the same criticism levelled by the populist right is bollox now. Alas, they are quite influential, and control an army of million young men with an internet connection and a vote. The devastating result can be witnessed in all of Western Europe's elections of late.