OPINION: Russia is stepping up its propaganda, helped by a French billionaire

First, the good news. The audience for CNews, the far-right TV channel controlled by the billionaire Vincent Bolloré, is falling.

Second, even more good news - and long overdue. The French media watchdog has issued a formal warning to CNews for breaking the terms of its “balanced news” licence by broadcasting non-stop far-right narratives.

Now the disturbing news. CNews and the entire Bolloré media empire has become a front for Russian propaganda.

The former head of Russia Today TV channel, Xenia Fedorova, is not only a frequent talking head on CNews. She has become, according to insiders and former insiders, a de facto producer, with power of hire and fire of other guests. She has become not only the ultra-Catholic, Breton billionaire’s favourite “journalist” but his personal friend.

The Russian influence on Bolloréworld, always apparent, has become shameless. Last Wednesday JDNews, the mid-week supplement of the Bolloré-owned Journal du Dimanche, published an entire edition calling on France to change sides in the Ukraine war and prevent World War Three.

The front-page blurb read: “War in Ukraine: an appeal for a new beginning. Why France should join forces with Russia and stop the escalation towards war”.

Inside there were essays from four of France’s most senior Putin fanciers: the former Chirac speechwriter Henri Guaino, the far-right failed politician Philippe de Villiers, another far-right failed politician Nicolas Dupont-Aignan and the former Sarkozy-era education minister Luc Ferry.

What is going on? Why this open and abrupt avowal of support for Vladmir Putin by the allegedly patriotic Bolloré media empire?

There is no simple explanation. Even some CNews insiders are baffled and disturbed. If they express their doubts, they do not remain insiders for very long.

The retired French general Bruno Clermont, a military consultant with CNews for four years, was fired without explanation in March after criticising Putin on air. He blames the growing influence of Fedorova.

He told Le Monde recently: “Very clearly, several of my comments did not please Xenia Fedorova… Giving the floor continuously to this woman is … making a choice for the propaganda and lies of Putin and his friends.”

Last year Bolloré’s publishing house Fayard issued a short book by Fedorova called Bannie (banned). The book decries the absence of freedom of speech in the French and European media. When I say shameless, I mean shameless.

Several explanations are possible for Bolloré’s coming out as a Putin propagandist.

First, Russia is starting to lose the Ukraine war. The second coming of Donald Trump has not had the impact that Putin expected. Moscow is growing worried. It has turned up the volume of its official and unofficial lies.

Second, there is a presidential election in France next April. Putin and Bolloré anticipate a Far Right victory. They want to start the conversation within the Rassemblement National on a radical change in France’s position on the Ukraine war.

Marine Le Pen is historically a Putin ally. Her party was once a financial beneficiary of Moscow. Jordan Bardella, her Number Two and the likely RN candidate next year, is more anti-Russian - in his public comments at least.

The third and decisive factor is the friendship between Fedorova and Bolloré. The review copies of her book include a foreword, which was dropped from the published edition.

She wrote: “To Vincent, without whom I would never have done this alone – thank you for your support, your protection and your unwavering presence by my side in the most difficult moments.”

The philosopher Pascal Bruckner was one of a crowd of writers who left the Grasset publishing house when Bolloré fired its editor earlier this year. In an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt in April he said Bolloré had become a pawn of the Russian president.

“He imposed Fedorova at Fayard, he imposed her at CNews, at Europe 1. She is the voice of Moscow. Bolloré is Putin's man. What matters is not Christianity, it is not immigration, it is Putin.”

Le Monde reported last month that the French government was increasingly disturbed by Fedorova’s influence. An internal memo quote by the newspaper said her online pronouncements follow Kremlin rhetoric almost word for word.

But what of the good news that the CNews audience is falling? The channel became the most watched French 24 hours TV news channel last year for the first time. It has now been overtaken by both BFMTV and LCI.

The latest official figures give CNews 2.6 percent of the audience, BFMTV 2.9 percent and LCI 2.7 percent. The low figures put the reach and influence of all-day news in perspective. Day-time soap opera rules.

The shift is significant all the same.

TV insiders say that CNews is starting to bore its viewers. They also point to a calamitous decision by Bolloré earlier this year to maintain the presenter Jean-Marc Morandini on air after he admitted sexual advances to boys.

Morandini has now departed. CNews is back to blasting the government for doing too little to protect children from sexual predators. The damage may have been done all the same.

It would be nice to think that CNews viewers have also noticed that the channel is becoming Russia Today in disguise. Support for French arms shipments to Ukraine is falling but over 70 percent of French people still see Moscow as a threat, not a friend.

Here, tentatively, then is the “good news”. CNews viewers are not as stupid as Vincent Bolloré thinks that they are.