CNews closure petition passes 770,000 signatures as Assembly committee prepares to name a rapporteur

A petition on the National Assembly's website calling for the closure of the news channel CNews had 772,551 signatures by Tuesday afternoon, well past the 500,000 mark that can open the way to a debate in the chamber. On Tuesday, the leadership of the Assembly's cultural affairs committee met to decide what to do with it. According to LCP, the Assembly's own news channel, the committee will be asked on Wednesday morning to name its chairman, Alexandre Portier of the Droite républicaine group, as rapporteur. He would then recommend whether the full chamber should debate the petition or whether it should be filed away.

The petition cannot close the channel. Only Arcom, France's independent broadcasting regulator, can withdraw a channel's license to broadcast on France's free digital terrestrial television network, known as the TNT. But the petition has become the center of a political fight over CNews, which is owned by the Canal+ group in the media empire of billionaire Vincent Bolloré. That fight sharpened after a racist shooting in Trappes on October 23. At Tuesday's questions to the government, a left-wing deputy asked Culture Minister Catherine Pégard whether she was "for or against the closure of CNews." She declined to say.

Quotations from French-language sources in this article are 567politics translations.

What the petition asks

The petition, titled "Remove CNews from French broadcasting," was filed on June 10, 2026, by a private individual, according to the Assembly's petition platform. It calls CNews "not a news channel" but "a propaganda machine." It says the channel has received "27 calls to order and 630,000 euros in fines" since 2019. It lists on-air remarks it objects to, including a guest comparing Bally Bagayoko, the mayor of Saint-Denis, to a monkey in March 2026, which the petition says led the Paris prosecutor to open an investigation for racist insult. It also compares CNews to Fox News in the United States. It asks for "the immediate withdrawal of CNews's TNT agreement" and the closure of the channel.

The text drew little attention for months. Fewer than 100,000 people had signed it before late October, according to the media site Puremédias. Signatures then rose quickly after the Trappes attack. On the Assembly's platform, signers must log in through FranceConnect, the state's identity service, so each person can sign only once.

The Trappes attack and the accusations against CNews

On October 23, a gunman opened fire in Trappes and La Verrière, in the Yvelines department west of Paris. A young man, Pengo Bossio Wangi, was killed and seven people were injured, including a 12-year-old girl, according to Public Sénat, the Senate's news channel. According to franceinfo, the national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office says the suspect, a 39-year-old Frenchman named Kévin Tessier, is suspected of deliberately shooting at "people (...) of Muslim or African or North African type."

Ali Rabeh, the mayor of Trappes, has accused CNews of bearing some responsibility for the attack by giving too much airtime to rhetoric that stigmatizes immigrants and their descendants, franceinfo reported. Several France Insoumise (LFI) deputies have praised the petition on X and promised to "dismantle" Bolloré's media group if they come to power. LFI deputy Thomas Portes has called for making "the closure of CNews a priority," according to the Journal du Dimanche, which is also owned by the Bolloré group. On Tuesday morning Portes wrote that the petition had reached 715,000 signatures and set a goal of one million:

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Ecologist senator Yannick Jadot has called on Arcom to "do its job," franceinfo reported. Two Ecologist deputies have asked the Assembly's president, Yaël Braun-Pivet, to withdraw the press accreditations of Bolloré group outlets at the Assembly, according to LCP and the JDD.

What happened at the Assembly on Tuesday

The committee's bureau, its governing body, met at 2:15 p.m. Paris time on Tuesday. That is 8:15 a.m. Eastern Time. Portier had told AFP the meeting was called to "discuss the subject," LCP reported on Monday. The bureau has nine members from across the political groups. Besides Portier, they are vice-chairs Céline Calvez, Delphine Lingemann, Jérémie Patrier-Leitus and Sophie Taillé-Polian, and secretaries Soumya Bourouaha, Ayda Hadizadeh, Graziella Melchior and Béatrice Piron.

After the meeting, LCP reported, citing its own information, that the committee would be asked on Wednesday to make Portier the rapporteur. The committee would then vote, probably next Tuesday, on whether to recommend a debate or to file the petition. That vote could slip by a week if some members are away for the November 11 Armistice Day ceremonies.

"What my colleagues expect is clearly the construction of a debate on freedom of expression," Portier told LCP. "Everyone agrees that the petition raises the question of the future of freedom of expression, regulation, pluralism and the handling of information in the age of social networks."

LCP said several deputies are considering a third path. The committee would file the petition, then ask the Conference of Presidents, which brings together Braun-Pivet and the leaders of the political groups, to hold a "broader debate" in the chamber than the petition itself calls for. Under the Assembly's rules, only the Conference of Presidents can schedule a debate in the chamber on a petition with at least 500,000 signatures from at least 30 departments or overseas territories. Such a debate ends without a vote. An earlier petition against the "Duplomb law" on farming also passed the threshold, according to franceinfo. Another, against a law on police use of firearms, passed 500,000 signatures but was filed by the law committee in July.

Pégard: "a parliamentary matter"

The question came up during questions to the government on Tuesday afternoon. Aly Diouara, an LFI deputy who is also mayor of La Courneuve, linked the channel to the attack. "For years, CNews targeted, and on October 23, Kevin killed. Words are never without consequence," he said, according to HuffPost. He then asked: "For or against the closure of CNews?"

Pégard, whose ministry is responsible for the media, did not answer that question directly. "For now this is a parliamentary matter, on which the government does not have to take a position. Your assembly will decide what follows," she said, as quoted by HuffPost. She called debate about the channel's editorial line "legitimate." She said the media operate within a framework set by lawmakers, under the constitutional principle of freedom of communication, and that this balance is overseen "by the judge but also by the independent authority, Arcom. It is for them to assess whether these rules are respected and, where appropriate, to draw the consequences."

Where the parties stand

The four left-wing groups in the Assembly want a debate in the chamber, franceinfo reported. Some of them say the debate should be about the regulator, not about a ban. "It is not for us to do it: we do not have the power and that is a good thing," Taillé-Polian, an Ecologist deputy, said at a press conference, according to franceinfo. "But we have the ability to change the law if Arcom's powers are not strong enough." Taillé-Polian told HuffPost that a vote by the Assembly for or against a television channel "would be an authoritarian and anti-democratic vision of the role of politics." She and Virginie Duby-Muller, a deputy affiliated with Les Républicains, are leading a fact-finding mission on Arcom's resources. It is due to report by early 2027.

Benjamin Lucas, another Ecologist deputy, told France Inter that when "hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens" express "their will to protect the Republic from the racist and xenophobic offensive" carried by Bolloré media, "the National Assembly must be able to debate it."

On the right and far right, opposition is open. Marine Le Pen, the National Rally's presidential candidate, wrote on X on Monday that "everyone must be able to watch this channel, criticize it, contradict it or defend it" and that the left was carrying an "obsession with censorship":

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Philippe Ballard, a National Rally deputy and former journalist, told France Inter: "Welcome to the country where some would like to bring back censorship." Louis Aliot, the party's vice president, told CNews that "we must continue to defend freedom of expression." Government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon and Nice mayor Éric Ciotti have also warned against threats to press freedom, the JDD reported.

The center is wary too. "In a democracy, you don't close media outlets," said Patrier-Leitus, a Horizons deputy and a spokesman for Édouard Philippe's presidential campaign, according to Public Sénat. He told France Inter that a debate on the rules and on pluralism was possible, but that "a debate on banning media seems very dangerous to me." Portier told AFP that he was "surprised and worried by the growing number of calls for censorship," Public Sénat reported.

CNews's response

"We will not comment on this political petition," CNews told AFP, according to franceinfo. The channel has always denied promoting far-right views and says it defends freedom of expression. On Monday it said it was tied with BFMTV as France's most-watched news channel in October, with a 3.6% audience share according to Médiamétrie.

On Tuesday morning, CNews host Pascal Praud opened his show with an editorial against the petition. "The French far left never disappoints," he said, according to Puremédias. "Yesterday it supported Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot; today it wants to close CNews. That's more modest." He accused LFI of pressuring other media and their presenters as well.

What Arcom has found

Arcom has already ruled against CNews on pluralism. In a decision dated June 12, 2026, it formally ordered the channel to comply with the 1986 law's requirement that different "currents of thought and opinion" be expressed on air. This step, a mise en demeure, is a formal notice, not a fine. It followed a complaint from Reporters Without Borders filed in January.

Arcom said it had reviewed a sample of 168 hours of news programs from March 2025. It found that "in more than three-quarters of the sequences," panelists either expressed "the same point of view" or dissenting views "remain isolated and in some cases are even disparaged." It said a single interpretive framework dominated, "marked by a focus, through internal security questions, on the threat that immigration and Islam supposedly represent for French society." It concluded there was a "manifest and lasting imbalance."

The regulator also wrote that the pluralism rule "does not prevent the existence of an editorial line" that sets a channel apart, and "in no way" aims to disqualify any current of opinion. CNews, in its response to Arcom, cited the variety of its guests and an automated count of more than 550 distinct "ideas/opinions" on the war in Ukraine in March 2025. Arcom said these figures were "not substantiated." CNews has challenged the decision before the Conseil d'État, France's highest administrative court, franceinfo reported.

Arcom's sanctions are graduated: formal notice, fines, temporary suspension and, last, withdrawal of the license. In 2024 it chose not to renew the TNT frequency of C8, a sister channel of CNews. CNews's own license was renewed in December 2024 and runs to 2035, franceinfo reported. Arcom has not commented on the petition, according to franceinfo.

A separate legal challenge is pending. In late August, Voies de droit, an association of 71 university professors, filed a case at the Conseil d'État seeking the withdrawal of CNews's frequency, with a request for urgent suspension, Public Sénat reported. "Over time, when you see that sanctions have no effect, all that is left is the withdrawal of their frequency for the law to be respected," said Camille Broyelle, a law professor at Paris-Panthéon-Assas who leads the group. Public Sénat, citing a count by Le Monde, said CNews had received more than 60 warnings and sanctions since Bolloré took control in 2017, with fines totaling €630,000.

The committee timetable

On Wednesday, the committee is due to vote on making Portier the rapporteur. A week later, or two if the November 11 ceremonies intervene, it is due to vote on his recommendation. If it backs a debate, the Conference of Presidents will decide whether and when to hold one. Any debate would end without a vote and would have no legal effect on the channel.

The dispute is one of several media rows in the run-up to the April 2027 presidential election. Jean-Luc Mélenchon has accused Édouard Philippe of "racist slander" after a TF1 interview and canceled his own appearance on TF1, a story 567politics covered. Background on the candidates and the calendar is on our France elections page.

How we reported this

567politics read the petition on the Assembly's platform, where we also took the signature count at 3:26 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, and Arcom's June 12 decision in full. Accounts of Tuesday's bureau meeting and of the committee timetable come from LCP, which cited its own information; the committee had not published a statement when we checked. Quotes from Portier, Pégard, Taillé-Polian and others come from LCP, HuffPost, franceinfo, France Inter, Public Sénat and the JDD. Le Pen's and Portes's posts are their own. We did not independently verify the petition's count of sanctions or the figures cited by the Voies de droit group. See our methodology for how we source and check stories.

Differing perspectives

What, if anything, should be done about CNews after the petition calling for its closure?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Leave the channel alone and defend media pluralism

  Who holds it: Marine Le Pen and the National Rally

  Le Pen says CNews is part of the French broadcasting landscape and that its programs and commentators contribute to the clash of ideas a living democracy needs. Whether or not people share its editorial line, she argues, everyone must be free to watch, criticize or defend it. She says the left's push to close it threatens free expression and media pluralism.

  In their words: Marine Le Pen on X ↗

• Leave the decision to the regulator and the courts

  Who holds it: Culture Minister Catherine Pégard and the government

  The government says the petition is a parliamentary matter on which it will not take a position. Pégard says debate about a channel's editorial line is legitimate, but that media work within limits set by law, and that it is for the courts and the independent regulator Arcom to judge whether those rules are respected and draw the consequences.

  In their words: HuffPost ↗

• Strengthen Arcom rather than have lawmakers decide

  Who holds it: Ecologist deputy Sophie Taillé-Polian and other left-wing deputies

  These deputies want the Assembly to debate the petition but say it is not Parliament's role to close a channel, and that it is good it lacks that power. They argue the real question is whether the regulator's tools are strong enough. If Arcom's powers prove insufficient, they say, lawmakers can change the law so that pluralism and anti-hate rules are enforced.

  In their words: franceinfo ↗

• Withdraw the channel's broadcast license

  Who holds it: The petition's author and signers; LFI deputies such as Thomas Portes

  Supporters of the petition say CNews is not a real news channel and serves a political agenda. They point to Arcom warnings, fines and on-air remarks they describe as racist. They argue that fines do not change the channel's behavior given the owner's wealth, and that a public frequency must be earned. They ask for the immediate withdrawal of CNews's TNT agreement and its closure.

  In their words: National Assembly petition platform (petition no. 5820) ↗