France Télévisions and religions display their unity around Sunday religious broadcasts

A rare unanimity. Tuesday, December 2, Delphine Ernotte, president of the France Télévisions group, received representatives of religions for discussions in the run-up to the 120th anniversary of the 1905 law on the separation of the State and the Churches. On this occasion, everyone congratulated themselves on the good relations, which are embodied by the broadcast of religious programs on Sunday mornings on France 2 – including mass with THE Lord’s Day.

“These broadcasts are part of our public service mission,” recalled the director of the public media group. For their part, representatives of religions praised the importance of these programs for their faithful and beyond. “An entire population cannot access their worship and these broadcasts allow us to reach them,” underlined Mgr Vincent Jordy, present as vice-president of the Conference of Bishops of France. And the other programs allow cultural enrichment.” For someone who is also Bishop of Tours, there is no doubt: “these are broadcasts of public utility”.

Does the broadcasting of religious programs on a public television channel really have its place in a State which does not recognize any religion? “We must not confuse secularism and atheism,” replied Haïm Korsia, chief rabbi of France. In the French conception of secularism, we must allow the expression of religion without favoritism.” The Sunday morning slot is thus “the expression of a component of civil society”, in the words of Christian Krieger, president of the Protestant Federation of France.

YouTube and CNews

The representatives of the religions declared themselves all the more satisfied that if France Télévisions “defines the specifications, there is “no interference from the group in our broadcasts”, noted the rector of the great mosque of Paris, Chems-Eddine Hafiz. These broadcasts hosted by the public service, added the chief rabbi, are therefore “the guarantee of being able to freely express who we are, without depending on the will of one or the other”.

For the official hierarchies of religions, this independence is particularly important in relations with the public service, especially as it establishes their moderation of content broadcast on their religions. And this authority is all the more precious as those responsible for religions lose it on other channels. Thus, the bishops are concerned about the “militant” nature of certain broadcasts and broadcasts of celebrations on the CNews channel. On the side of Muslim worship, it is the proliferation of religious content beyond any control on platforms like YouTube or TikTok that is feared.

Faced with these fears, France Télévisions is banking on broadcasting Sunday morning shows on its YouTube channel “Les chemins de la foi”. And above all, “in the period we are going through, we are aware of the significant importance that interreligious broadcasts can have,” declared Delphine Ernotte, raising the possibility that these episodic programs will be more frequent. Because for the president of the group, promoting free expression and peaceful dialogue between religions is part of “our public service mission”.