Presenter interrupts debate on student movement

On the evening of October 1, during a special program on LCI focusing on the student movement, presenter Darius Rochebin invited several deputies to discuss the issue, including Manuel Bompard from France Insoumise, Prisca Thevenot from the Hauts-de-Seine, and Jean-Philippe Tanguy from the National Rally.

Focus on violence over student demands

Manuel Bompard was the first to express a desire to discuss the student demands during the evening. He was immediately interrupted by Rochebin, who emphasized the urgency of addressing disorder and violence. The program opened with videos of alleged violence and destruction by protesters near blocked schools, accompanied by comments expressing strong sympathy for the police and gendarmerie.

Selective emotional responses to violence

A video showing a police lieutenant being knocked down and struck on October 1 in Paris prompted Rochebin to express deep emotion, calling the scene emblematic and unacceptable. However, no similar emotional response was shown for documented cases of police violence, such as the injury of Eden, a 14-year-old struck by a tear gas grenade, or Maël, a 16-year-old who lost an eye.

Media's invisibility of police violence

Journalist Pauline Perrenot, in her book Les médias contre la gauche (Éditions Agone, 2023), notes the systematic invisibility of police violence in dominant media. Bompard had to print and bring photos of the victims to circumvent the network's refusal to show them. Rochebin responded by claiming the network had shown these images, despite only broadcasting one instance of police violence earlier in the day.

Framing the movement as a 'wild horde'

The program's framing of the student movement as a "wild horde" without demands was reinforced by the absence of the students' demands, which were described as "instrumentalized for electoral purposes" by government spokesperson Maud Bregeon or as a "wild horde" by Paul-Édouard Lallois, a prosecutor. When Bompard attempted to steer the discussion towards student demands, Rochebin mocked his persistence, and Thevenot supported the framing.

Unequal time spent on issues

The discussion on student demands was limited to 12 minutes, while 34 minutes were spent on alleged protester violence. The question of police violence was addressed only once by Bompard in 45 minutes of the program. According to Acrimed, from September 28 to October 1, France 2 allocated 24 minutes and 53 seconds to student mobilizations, with 75% of that time focusing on "violence," "fires," "garbage fires," or "confrontations" between students and police, while only 8% was devoted to student demands and 3% to potential excessive police responses.

Authoritarian trends in government response

The government's response to the student movement is part of a series of authoritarian deployments during Emmanuel Macron's first term, including the 2016-2017 labor reform protests, the 2018-2019 Yellow Vest protests, the 2019 and 2023 pension reform protests, and the 2023 A69 opposition movement. These events have shown a hardening of police practices and an authoritarian drift of the state, characterized by the use of freedom deprivation as an order-maintenance tool and the instrumentalization of penal law for repression and deterrence.

Media bias and institutional dependency

This trend is reinforced by a lack of media resistance, according to Perrenot, who notes that government and coercive institution communications have consistently outcompeted narratives from victims, their families, or witnesses. She calls this phenomenon "prefectural journalism," defined as a set of professional reflexes that systematically bias the media coverage of police operations or other state coercive actions.

Sensationalism over substance

The current media landscape, influenced by capitalist ownership and economic logic, often prioritizes sensational content such as burned trash cans, broken windows, and burning schools, which attract attention and audiences, overshadowing student demands. Journalists covering "miscellaneous news" often grant an unconscious presumption of objectivity to police informants. Since the start of the student movement, statements from Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez have been systematically broadcast in full or shortly after being released, with France Info TV airing his October 7 speech in its entirety for 25 minutes.