VIDEO. “Pro-Palestinian bias”, “vector of the rise of anti-Semitism”… faced with criticism, AFP defends itself

AFP Director-General Fabrice Fries said it was “serious and disgraceful” to accuse the agency of being a “vector for the growth of anti-Semitism” during a dispute over coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas during a Senate hearing on Tuesday. Apart from the “sometimes outrageous allegations”, the “debate over reporting of the conflict” is “legitimate”, he also said, denying any “bias” on the part of the AFP. Thus, he admitted that the press agency had committed a “failure” by not dedicating a report in French on the same day to projecting images of the October 7 massacre committed by Hamas. This display was organized on October 23 by the Israeli army.

“If most critics in France speak of pro-Palestinian bias, some have not hesitated to make the agency a vector for the growth of anti-Semitism,” Fabrice Fries said in a statement read in the preamble. “This is all the more serious and shameful because the AFP was born in August 1944 in the Liberation region through the actions of a handful of resistance fighters, who were soon joined by Shoah survivors,” he said for follow-up. “These accusations are crazy, these are not just comments from a television screen, since the elected representative of the republic, a deputy, picked them up on his own,” added the general director of Agence France-Presse. He targeted MP Meyer Habib (linked to LR), whose constituency for French people living abroad covers Israel. The latter said on November 7 on the social network X that “anti-Semitism” can “sometimes” be encountered at Agence France-Presse. According to Fabrice Fries, comments that the elected official “has not withdrawn his candidacy” despite a request from AFP. “That’s why we’re going to file a complaint,” he announced.

Editorial policy valid for any movement

The AFP director-general once again defended the agency’s editorial policy prohibiting the use of the term “terrorist” without quotation marks. This position has drawn criticism from Hamas in recent weeks. “This instruction is more than 20 years old” and it applies “to all movements without exception,” said the agency’s general director. “We’ve been hyping this up for weeks,” he fumed at the end of the hearing. “We will never deny the atrocities of October 7. Even during Charlie’s attacks on our land (…) the debate was settled in this sense, there was no disagreement,” he insisted. Beyond external criticism, coverage of the conflict has sparked intense debate within AFP itself, one of three global news agencies along with AP and Reuters, with journalists suggesting that certain editorial decisions could open the door to accusations of bias.