AFP privatisée ? Non merci ! - A Privatised AFP? No Thanks!

The independence of Agence France-Presse, one of only a handful of major international news agencies, is an important cause that has to be defended. A law which is being drawn up for the French Parliament would turn the agency into a joint-stock company in all but name, to be funded at least initially by the state. Such a move would completely denature the company.

Like the health service, AFP should not be judged solely on the criterion of profitability - which has no bearing on the need for it to be well managed. Is a news agency supposed to ignore or play down a war in an African or Asian country, a social conflict or a statement which upsets powerful interests, simply because coverage of such issues is not directly profitable? We say never!

As for promises that an AFP which became a joint-stock company would never be privatised, we have seen only recently that such commitments mean nothing: the French state gas company GDF was supposed never to be privatised - until it was. AFP should not be either privatised or made beholden to private or political interests in any way.

At the time of writing some 18,000 people, including prominent figures such as former World War II resistance fighters, leading journalists and politicians of varying hues - true, most from the left or the centre of French politics, but quite a few also from the right - artists and members of the general public attached to media independence, have already signed the "Petition for the Independence and Survival of AFP" initiated by all the main trade unions represented in the company.
It is an initiative which should be of concern to everyone, and is destined to become ever more important. Simply because everybody has an interest in a company like AFP remaining independent.

The ADIAFP Association: Join Us!

It was indeed thanks to the success of the petition, and the concomitant realisation of the indispensable role played by organisations such as AFP - an institution which many even highly-placed people in France do not fully understand - that we decided to create the Association to Defend the Independence of AFP (ADIAFP). We hope that thousands will join us, for what is at stake is democracy itself.

Most people around the world do not realise just how much of the key information which informs their debates, conversations and newspaper reading from day to day comes from only a handful of global news organisations, of which AFP is one. Such news has not only to be obtained, but also checked, written up and published, by news agency journalists whose role remains mostly anonymous.
The French press is generally reluctant to discuss the role of agencies such as our own; as a rule it does not like to focus too much on its own problems, particularly when they concern the company which provides their main raw material, which they would generally like to obtain at lower cost. This is unsurprising, but it is no reason not to carry on the fight.

AFP's reporters, photographers and video journalists are present the world over: the company has a regular presence in no less than 165 countries. Its customers include newspapers, TV and radio stations, government services, non-media companies and even private citizens. It has two main competitors, richer but often with less reach: the British-born agency Reuters, and Associated Press in the United States. AFP is therefore one of the only major global news agencies which does not have its roots in the English-speaking world. That simple fact is important, even on the cultural level, for media and news consumers in many countries.
AFP employs around 2,200 people, not including hundreds of stringers, around the world. Journalists are of course in the majority, but the staff also include many technicians, sales representatives and other white- and blue-collar employees. It is a great company, which inspires strong loyalty in those who keep it going. Its roots go back to 1835, when Charles-Louis Havas founded what was at the time the very first international news agency in history.

1944: Anti-Nazi Resistance Fighters Take Command

During World War II the French Vichy administration, which collaborated with the Germans, turned the Havas news agency and its headquarters on Place de la Bourse in central Paris into the French Information Office, or OFI, a propaganda mouthpiece. On August 20, 1944, with Allied forces already established in Normandy and a resistance uprising under way in the capital, a group of anti-Nazi fighters, many of them journalists, liberated the headquarters building. On August 26, one of the first government orders issued by the new régime under Charles de Gaulle, declared that the French press should no longer depend on financial interests, but should be independent.
Thus was born the France-Presse agency, on September 30, 1944. It took another 13 years before the French Parliament, in January 1957, finally agreed on statutes which formally guaranteed the independence of what was by then known as Agence France-Presse. The statutes decreed that AFP could not be wound up, assigned it the task of providing honest, verified and serious news, of maintaining a worldwide network, and allowed for the negotiation and signature of subscriptions taken out by the state.

Statutes which Have Never Prevented AFP from Growing and Evolving

The statutes give AFP's main clients, including the French regional press, the key roles on the company's board of governors. These statutes have to date never prevented the agency from developing. Its annual sales now come to some 280 million euros. Forty percent of that sum is derived from the subscriptions provided to the state, which has great need of them. They provide French public services at all levels, from ministries to embassies and local government offices, with information which is indispensable to their operations.

Under its current statutes AFP was able to make the costly transitions into the computer and then the Internet age, and also to diversify, creating international photo, graphics, multimedia and TV services. The statutes have also not prevented the agency from entering into numerous partnerships.
There is no doubt that the French media industry, like those in many other countries, is currently undergoing a crisis. On the one hand, magazines, TV news and what are generally referred to as "people" publications are doing well. The country has four times more professional journalists - currently some 31,000 - than 40 years ago. But at the same time the number of newspapers, and notably of dailies, has plummeted. There are now only around 10 national dailies, of which only seven are general news titles, as against 50 in 1945. The regional press has dwindled to less than 80 titles in all.

There have been problems taking on board recent technological developments, strong competition from TV and more recently from the Internet, an excessive level of concentration, plus the unbridled growth of freesheets, one of which - "20 Minutes" - now has the country's highest print-run, at some 870,000 daily copies. There has also, more recently, been the economic crisis, which is taking a heavy toll.

Perhaps the content of news is also a problem. Although the French are enthusiastic book-readers, they are among the bottom of the class in Europe as regards buying and reading newspapers, and well behind Japan and China as well.

But nothing is lost; nothing whatsoever is lost. In the world as a whole, the press remains an essential resource. While many "experts" seem to be rushing to pronounce its last rites, a recent study by the World Association of Newspapers shows that a total of 539 million daily papers were being printed every day around the globe in 2008: a figure 8.8% higher than that recorded four years earlier.
And even on the Internet, declared by some specialists to be the future of news, users are still very much in need of reliable information as opposed to rumours and gossip.

Perhaps the press itself is heading for a new start. We appreciate the value, the courage and the determination of our colleagues, who love the craft of journalism. But the fact is that any uniformisation of news, like the trend towards ever more "people-oriented" stories, and the dependence on advertising revenues (which provide at least half of all sales overall), call for a return to solid investigative journalism, to the essentials of our profession.
Which is a very good thing: it is precisely what people are asking for: to be informed, to be provided with all they need to understand and to form their own opinions of the world.

In this rebirth of the press and media generally, AFP must remain a key source. In complete independence.

With its independence maintained and confirmed, AFP can contribute to a revitalisation of the press in France and the world as a whole. Its privatisation, on the other hand, would dramatically impoverish the media landscape. Which is why we don't want it.
 

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