French performers Sophia Aram, Arthur and Gerard Darmon speak at a Paris rally on 5 October 2025 in memory of the 7 October victims and in support of Israeli hostages held in Gaza<\/p>\n
Despite an apparently greater interest<\/a> shown in the horrific fate of the Palestinians<\/a> between May and October, in alignment with the slightly more critical declarations of western governments, France<\/a>‘s mainstream media never stopped uncritically echoing Israeli<\/a> Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rhetoric, even as Palestinians were being decimated before our eyes.<\/p>\n This small, temporary shift in tone did not signal any change in their overwhelmingly pro-Israeli positions, but rather a moment of damage control during the worst phase<\/a> of the genocide<\/a>.<\/p>\n French media – and, to varying extents, those of many other countries – were thus forced to at least pretend to be more critical of Israel and grant more space to the plight of the Palestinians.<\/p>\n Yet at the same time, they deployed a range of strategies that effectively cancelled out that already mild and momentary inflexion in their reporting, allowing them to continue toeing Israel’s official line as closely as possible.<\/p>\n These methods were, and remain, systematic across the dominant French television and radio channels, both public and private, as well as in the major newspapers and magazines, from the centre-left to the far right.<\/p>\n The only exception<\/a> is the small Communist daily L’Humanite<\/a>, which lacks the reach and influence of the larger outlets. The result is a media landscape in which pro-Israeli propaganda continues to shape coverage at every level.<\/p>\n At a time when the reality<\/a> of the genocide <\/a>had become impossible to deny – after top Holocaust Studies<\/a> academics and the UN Independent Commission recognised<\/a> it, and a number of Israeli Jewish public figures echoed<\/a> the international call for sanctions – the French media saturated<\/a> their coverage with known Israeli propagandists<\/a> and government officials.<\/p>\n They platformed genocide denialists<\/a> such as Caroline Fourest and Georges Bensoussan<\/a>, giving them lengthy, unchallenged airtime.<\/p>\n Fourest, a ubiquitous media presence<\/a> despite her record<\/a> of disinformation, often targeting Muslims and defending Israel, denied Israel’s humanitarian blockade and claimed that Hamas was hijacking food<\/a> and aid. She also insisted that Palestinian deaths were overestimated<\/a> and should be “divided by at least five and even 10”, ignoring that these figures are widely considered a dramatic undercount.<\/p>\n Yet she and others were still given free rein to repeat Israel’s proven lies, including fabricated stories of decapitated babies<\/a>.<\/p>\n ecent studies show<\/a> that France’s reporting largely consisted of quoting<\/a> Netanyahu or the Israeli military without critical distance, parroting<\/a> the official talking points of the Israeli government and its armed forces. These statements were often the sole sources<\/a> for news segments, justified by appeals to “journalistic objectivity”.<\/p>\n In media reporting, one must consider not only what is shown but also what is omitted.<\/p>\n In that respect, all major French outlets dramatically under-reported Palestinian suffering or ignored key aspects of Israel’s eradication of the Palestinian people, especially outside of Gaza.<\/p>\n The influential daily Le Parisien, which often sets the news agenda, did not cover<\/a> the West Bank at all for the 11 months between October 2023 and September 2024, concealing the ethnic cleansing campaign underway there.<\/p>\n During the worst of Israel’s genocidal assault, the 1pm and 8pm newscasts of the public channel France2 and the private channel TF1 largely stopped covering Gaza, dedicating only five and eight minutes<\/a>, respectively, over 10 straight days between 5 and 14 September 2025 – most of it spent repeating Israel’s official line.<\/p>\n They nevertheless found ample time for trivial items, including celebrity news and social media rumours about Brigitte Macron.<\/p>\n Such editorial choices, similar across public and private media and clearly deliberate, amounted to censoring Israel’s killing and injuring of thousands of Palestinian civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank, rendering them invisible<\/a>.<\/p>\n This occurred at a time when reporters<\/a> had already been banned<\/a> from Gaza so Israel could kill behind closed doors and cover up its atrocities – including, when needed, by targeting the journalists<\/a> who risked their lives to report them.<\/p>\n Western media routinely suppress information that exposes Israel’s actions, including the illegality of its bombing campaigns in Iran, Syria and Lebanon; its long record of violating international law; its repeated UN condemnations for war crimes; and the extraordinary fact that a state treated as an ally and a democracy has for years been ruled by a man wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity<\/a>, murder and other inhumane acts.<\/p>\n This silencing amounts to disinformation by omission.<\/p>\n One also observes a systematic sanitisation, normalisation and euphemisation of the language used to describe Israel’s atrocities since 1948.<\/p>\n Over the last two years, a genocide was simply a “war against Hamas” or another episode in the so-called “Israeli-Palestinian conflict<\/a>“.<\/p>\n Words such as “colonisation”, “colonialism”, “apartheid<\/a>“, “Jewish supremacism”, “massacres” or even “Occupied Territories” are almost entirely absent, revealing deliberate editorial choices to conceal central<\/a>, irrefutable facts.<\/p>\n Ethnic cleansing becomes “population displacement”. Colonisation becomes “strategic and methodical evacuation” or “offensive expansion”. Civilian targets, including schools and hospitals, become “enemy positions”. A racist, colonial, segregationist and religiously supremacist ethnostate is described as a “democracy” and part of “the West”.<\/p>\n This rhetoric mirrors Israel’s own, ignoring that Israeli Jewish historians have long debunked these myths of self-legitimation. Likewise, Israel never “kills” anyone: Palestinians simply “die” or “are killed”, the passive voice erasing Israeli responsibility.<\/p>\n From 7 October 2023 onward, French and western media embraced Israel’s alibi, describing these two horrendous years as “self-defence” in perfect Orwellian doublespeak.<\/p>\n It is also remarkable that Israel is never labelled a “terrorist state”, despite being the most lethal in the world and an active supporter of terrorism<\/a>, while terms such as “terrorist”, “terror”, “massacre” or “murder” are reserved exclusively<\/a> for its enemies.<\/p>\n Besides what is or is not reported, how stories are framed matters just as much.<\/p>\n French media watchdogs, including Acrimed<\/a>, Arret sur Image<\/a>, Les Mots Sont Importants (LMSI<\/a>) and Blast<\/a>, have documented the radically pro-Israel framing across major outlets, to the point even Google’s AI finds nothing positive to say when asked how they covered the Gaza “conflict”.<\/p>\n Pro-Netanyahu voices dominated both screen time and treatment, while the rare pro-Palestinian guests were marginalised, criticised as pro-Hamas, constantly interrupted<\/a> and placed between several pro-Israeli guests and “moderators”.<\/p>\n Double standards<\/a> were also clear in coverage of casualties and in reporting on the release of hostages and prisoners. France24 devoted<\/a> three and a half minutes to its live report on the release of 20 Israelis but only one minute to 90 Palestinians. The tone was celebratory for Israelis but perfunctory for Palestinians.<\/p>\n Palestinians were described as “prisoners”, not “hostages”, with constant emphasis on alleged terrorism. Some commentators even labelled all Palestinian hostages “all terrorists<\/a>“, ignoring that many were children abused<\/a> in Israeli jails, echoing the official<\/a> Israeli line.<\/p>\n A further aspect of this preferential treatment was the exclusive humanisation of the 20 Israeli hostages<\/a>, presented through a plethora<\/a> of photos, personal stories and biographical details.<\/p>\n None of this was extended to the far more numerous Palestinian hostages held by the Israeli military, including scores of children about whom there was virtually no reporting.<\/p>\n These double standards in valuing innocent lives are both quantitative and qualitative<\/a>.<\/p>\nDisinformation by omission<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Systematic sanitisation<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Double standards<\/strong><\/h2>\n