CNEWS and the Bolloré Galaxy: Six Fines, Calls for "Roundups" — and an Algerian Obsession

Nawel Zerhouni — Paris, France — 2026-09-06

There is a channel in France that its own regulator fines more than any other — for statements aimed by name at Algerians. It is called CNEWS, it belongs to Vincent Bolloré's empire, and on 11 February 2026 Arcom, France's audiovisual regulator, hit it with a €25,000 fine over a segment in which a guest described "millions of Algerians who pose major risks," capable of "pulling out a knife in the metro" or "taking a car and driving into a crowd." It is not Algeria saying this — it is the French regulator, which ruled that the remarks were "likely to encourage discriminatory behavior."

The offending segment dates from 8 August 2025, on the show "L'Heure des pros 2 été." Its author, Noëlle Lenoir, is a former minister of the Republic. Her stigmatization of "millions of Algerians" was no isolated slip: it fits a pattern that the sanctions draw more clearly than any commentary. On 2 February 2026, on CNEWS, pundit Jean-Claude Dassier suggested, of Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian detainees, "throwing them into the Mediterranean." The anchor cut him off live — "what you're saying is horrible" — and Dassier was dropped from CNEWS and Europe 1. In late January 2026, lawyer Arno Klarsfeld called on the same channel for "big roundups" of foreigners under OQTF removal orders: the Paris prosecutor's office opened an inquiry on 10 February 2026.

The galaxy's star host, Pascal Praud, is not to be outdone. On 17 October 2025, in the middle of the bilateral crisis, he devoted his editorial to Algeria: "France pays when Algeria refuses to pay the pensions of its own citizens," read the channel's own headline. In mid-December 2025, a columnist claimed that Algeria was "hunting down Christmas logs" — until Algerian public broadcaster AL24 News answered with the humor that kills, buying a Yule log live on air. And on 2 June 2026, CNEWS and Europe 1 gave their airwaves to a freed Boualem Sansal, who called the Algerian president a "vulgar dictator" and urged Paris to be "uncompromising."

The structure, for its part, is documented: CNEWS, Europe 1, Le Journal du Dimanche and Paris Match answer to the same shareholder. CNEWS was born on 27 February 2017 within Canal+, itself controlled by Vivendi, whose leading shareholder is the Bolloré family. On 21 November 2023, Vivendi took "full" control of Lagardère, throwing Europe 1, Le JDD, Paris Match and Hachette into the same basket. And at the helm of the JDD since the summer of 2023 sits Geoffroy Lejeune — the man fined €50,000 by Arcom in 2024 for blaming "Arab-Muslim immigration" for antisemitism and prison overcrowding. Media anti-Algerianism in France has a face, a shareholder and an editor-in-chief.

As for the bill, it is damning — and public. Since 2021, Arcom has handed down at least six financial fines against CNEWS: €20,000 for climate disinformation, €50,000 for false information, €60,000 for airing "immigration kills" remarks without any counterpoint, €100,000 for lies about abortion, and on 11 February 2026, €25,000 for Noëlle Lenoir's anti-Algerian comments — topped up the same day by €75,000 for anti-Palestinian comments. In November 2025, the Conseil d'État, France's highest administrative court, upheld three of these sanctions, totaling €139,000, ruling that the channel had indeed incited hatred against immigrants. And yet CNEWS kept its frequency on digital terrestrial television, where C8, another channel of the same group, lost its own. The regulator sanctions; those in power refuse to face the consequences.

One clarification is in order, for the sake of truth — for truth is our weapon. Some commentators explain this editorial line by a supposed "grudge" of Vincent Bolloré against Algeria, which allegedly denied him port concessions. That story is false: no document, no concession, no bid, no port dispute between Bolloré and Algeria exists. The African scope of Bolloré Africa Logistics — sold to the MSC group on 31 March 2022 for €5.7 billion, finalized on 21 December 2022 — covered West, Central and East Africa. Never Algeria. The DjenDjen terminal belongs to DP World of the United Arab Emirates. The truth is simpler and more disturbing: what France sees on screen is not personal revenge, it is an editorial and commercial strategy — the strategy of a press empire that has turned Islam, immigration and Algeria into its electoral cash cow.

Algeria, for its part, has nothing to prove and nothing to fear from these screens. It answers with facts, figures and dignity — and it leaves the French regulator to do its job, since it is the regulator, not us, that documents the hatred. Six fines. A call for roundups. An invitation to "throw Algerian nationals into the Mediterranean." And a public frequency preserved. Algerians have no need to invent conspiracies: they need only quote the decisions of French justice. It is that justice which accuses. And it is that justice which is right.