The addition of France 24 in Arabic risks making things worse. The Muslims who speak French might watch both stations, but the majority of France does not speak Arabic and thus will not watch the Arabic version of the newscast. The editorial line-up for the network is supposed to be the same regardless of language, but where linguistic fault lines begin, societal fractures often follow.
This is happening in a climate of ambient anti-Semitism and political correctness that permits attacks against Jews to be carried out with more frequency than any nation that collaborated with the Nazis and claims to have atoned for it. There was the brutal torture and murder last year of Ilan Halimi, a young Parisian singled out because he was Jewish. He was reburied earlier this year in Israel. On March 31, another Jewish cemetery was desecrated, this time in the northern city of Lille. Neither event — the Halimi reburial or cemetery attack — was covered on France 24, in any language. How do I know that? I work there. The Web site, France24.com, receives so many anti-Semitic hate mails that the editors have considered eliminating user reactions to news items altogether.
(anthony grant, www.nysun.com 11.04.2007)
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