campaign, Martinican-born assertive political pundit and radio and TV
show hostess Audrey Pulvar, 40, was fired by Canal+, a French media
conglomerate partially-owned by COMCAST.
Canal+ called the firing a "suspension" and explained it as a
"cautionary" move motivated by "professional ethics."
A convoluted way to say that Pulvar's analytical "objectivity" had
been impaired beyond repair for being the live-in girlfriend of Arnaud
Montebourg, 49, one of the rising stars of the socialist party.
Well, that was only the beginning of Pulvar's professional troubles.
During the socialist primaries of last year, Pulvar raised eyebrows
for appearing at campaign stumps and events at the side of Montebourg
(photo above)--who was vying for the socialist party's presidential
nomination as one among François Hollande's 5 rivals.
And state-owned Radio France Internationale (RFI) quickly yanked
Pulvar from her morning political show.
Pulvar triggered renewed ethical questions during the presidential campaign.
She continued to appear as one of the cohosts of Laurent Ruquier's
weekend TV show "On n'est pas couché" (on state-owned France 2)--a
seemingly innocuous program whose guests include movie stars, writers,
and, occasionnally, political figures.
Last March, she "destroyed" (to use one media observer's phrase) on
that show Jean-François Copé, the pugnacious Secretary General of
Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party, who querulously shot back that Pulvar was
a politician masquerading as a journalist and that her airtime ought
to be counted down like any other politician, as mandated by the media
authority during political campaigns.
With the appointment of Montebourg at the helm of the Industry
Ministry (now fancifully renamed "Ministry of Productive Recovery"),
the ethical quandary of Pulvar turned from bad to untenable--what with
her blatant "conflict of interest," as the guild of journalists
charged.
The daily Le Monde reported on Monday, June 4, that Pulvar had just
tweeted that she's leaving the show "On n'est pas couché."
Le Monde adds that this announcement on Twitter occurs "a few days
after the president of [state-owned media group] France Télévisions,
Rémy Pflimlin, asked her to stop conducting political interviews."
This polite firing comes on the heels of yet another cancelation of of
her political radio program by France Inter.
Pulvar's Monday tweet was rancorous:
"Audrey PULVAR @ Audrey_PULVAR
Thanks y'all. I don't doubt that the honor of journalism has
henceforth been restored and the media have become neutral again. Ciao
viva!"
In a column that appeared in the daily Libération in November of last
year, Pulvar's response to her firing by Canal+ was more cogent:
"Thus, beyond my case today, a woman would still be condemned to think
as and through her male companion. She'd always be incapable of
freeing herself not only from her companion's thought, but also from
the feelings she has for him."
All the employers of Pulvar want her to come up with proposals for
"cultural" shows. In effect, they are killing her career of political
punditry.
She's not alone in that predicament.
Valérie Trierweiler, President Hollande's girlfriend, has just been
reassigned by the privately-owned weekly Paris Match from political
coverage to the "cultural events" section.
People are now remembering with a grain of sarcasm that Trierweiler
famously exclaimed to fellow journalists when her boyfriend won the
presidency: "There's no way my role would be that of a figurehead!"
Now, as it turns out, she's just what she vowed not to become because
of her association with her presidential boyfriend: a "potiche"
[figurehead] all the same.
Incidentally, Pierre Salviac, a rugby commentator tweeted on May 9,
advising other French female journalists to follow in the footsteps of
Trierweiler--derisively dubbed "rottweiler" by the Sarkozy campaign:
"fuck for success you'd get a shot at becoming France's First Lady ;-)"
Salviac was promptly fired on the same day by the commercial radio RTL
and the sports channel L'Equipe TV.
Anyway, Trierweiler already lost a political TV show last year for her
personal involvement with Hollande.
By contrast, former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's
Belgian-born girlfriend Chritine Ockrent, not only continued to be a
political reporter on French television after her partner's
ministerial appointment, but she was also elevated by Nicolas Sarkozy
to managerial positions overseeing French and Francophone radio and TV
channels.
Way to go, girl!
Ockrent meteoric rise was deemed scandalous by French journos, who
gave her the moniker of "Reine Ockrent," no doubt in reference to her
Belgian roots!
Turning back to the case of Pulvar--and to that of France's
default-First Lady--it seems to me that sexism is lurching behind
these selective and stifling professional ethics.
In her column in Libération, Pulvar posed a serious theoretical issue
on the French female biopolitical nonautonomy.
Which would beg the following question: what if the woman in question
is from a different political sensibility than her male
companion--say, as Democrat James Carville used to spar with his
Republican wife Mary Matalin on the now-defunct CNN's Crossfire--would
she still be fired too, regardless?
Do these Parisian Cartesian pedants from Sciences Po seriously
consider politics and political punditry as objective sciences?
Maybe someone ought to tell them that "political science" could be
construed as an oxymoron!
In any case, Audrey Pulvar will be sorely missed by Kinshasa viewers
of TV5MONDE--the channel jointly owned by big Francophone countries
(Belgium, Canada, France, and Switzerland)--on which "On n'est pas
couché" is syndicated.
***
PHOTO CREDITS: www.actualites.fr
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