Paris (France) (AFP) – The general secretary of the CGT Sophie Binet opposed the presence of the CNews channel on Monday, during a press point in front of Matignon, followed in the afternoon by the youth inter-union, a boycott denounced by the right and the far right.

Published on: 09/11/2026 - 19:18

"Can you remove the microphone? I'm not talking to CNews," declared Sophie Binet, interrupting her remarks on the social conference of the government and social partners by seeing in the middle of many microphones the one flocked with the name of the Canal+ group channel.

“You know very well that it’s always like that, I don’t speak to CNews, there’s no point in coming to be provocative,” she continued, in the face of protest from the CNews journalist, affirming that the CGT “does not mix information and opinion.”

The union leader, whose organization, like the CFDT, makes the fight against the far right one of its priorities, finally resumed her declaration by ostensibly turning away from the camera of the continuous news channel.

A position which arouses the ire of the right and the far right, who denounce a form of censorship. “Total support for Cnews. The general secretary of a large national union should not say that,” lamented Eric Ciotti on “Facho Binet in his works”, reacted for his part the deputy RN Jean-Philippe Tanguy on X.

The LR presidential candidate, Bruno Retailleau, for his part expressed on the same social network his "support" for "all editorial offices which are the target of the extreme left", affirming that "politicians or trade unionists who refuse to speak in the presence of a Cnews microphone are trampling on the freedom of the press".

In the afternoon, the youth inter-union (Fage - Unef - Student Union - USL) preferred to cancel its press conference organized before a meeting with Sébastien Lecornu.

“We are still not talking to CNews,” said the president of the High School Union (USL) Ryad Rani, surrounded by the general secretary of Unef Manon Moret, the president of Fage Suzanne Nijdam and the co-general secretary of the Student Union Éloïse Lefebvre-Milon.

"We're talking to those who do real journalism. That's not what you do. You're just a distribution belt for far-right ideas," said the high school leader. “We don’t talk to the extreme right, we don’t talk to people who are today responsible for the spread of hatred as we saw in Trappes.”

After demanding for several minutes the departure of the CNews team, students and high school students finally returned to participate in their meeting.

A few moments earlier, Louis Létoublon, vice-president of Lycéens!, had also considered that "the presence of CNews here poses a problem for us in terms of the quality of the debate", while continuing his exchanges with journalists.

In the bosom of conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré, the CNews channel is regularly accused of promoting far-right opinions and themes, which it contests by claiming to defend freedom of expression.

A petition calling to “remove CNews from French broadcasting” exceeded one million signatures on Sunday.

© 2026 AFP

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