Radio France Internationale to cut 200 jobs in “modernization” drive

Text of report by Juliette Collen, published by the French news agency AFP

Paris, 15 January 2009: Radio France Internationale, which faces “very serious difficulties”, is going to shed 206 jobs of a total of a thousand as part of a “modernization plan” which aims to win back audiences in certain parts of the world, in particular in Africa, to the detriment of six languages.

On Thursday [15 January], RFI’s management presented a “modernization plan” to the workers’ council providing for 206 jobs of a total of 1,040 to be cut and for the “possible creation” of 34 jobs, which would come down to a net loss of 172 jobs.

These staff reductions, which are due to take place in the course of 2009, will affect “just under 100 journalists”, including 67 in foreign language sections, said Marc Thiebault, the CFDT [trade union federation] delegate. The French section will also be affected, with the loss of some 30 jobs, the CFDT added. Management “has proposed an agreement on the method to negotiate favourable departure conditions,” according to Mr Thiebault.

The FO, SNJ, SNJ-CGT and SNRT-CGT unions, for their part, denounced a “massive redundancy plan”, in which they see a case of “winding up” the radio station, whose current situation, according to them, is the result of “poor management by successive management teams”. A general assembly of employees is planned for Friday.

RFI - which is now, together with France 24 [TV] and TV5Monde, part of France’s External Broadcasting Services (AEF), a holding company headed by Alain de Pouzilhac - put forward “serious difficulties” with which it was confronted and which were putting it “in danger”.

Regarding the financial issue, the radio has made “recurring losses” to the point of having announced a 9m-euro deficit for 2008. The state has pledged to “immediately” inject 17.2m euros into the radio station, the management said. RFI, whose 2008 budget is 137m euros, is financed to 95 per cent by the licence fee and state subsidies.

The radio has also seen “big and lasting falls” in its audience figures, in particular in French-speaking Africa, where it is losing about 1.5 per cent of its listeners every year. In the Ile-de-France [greater Paris] region, the audience has fallen by 25 per cent since 2007.

To “win back” this audience, RFI will present a new schedule which will “favour live broadcasting” and “speed up the multimedia side”. But above all it will embark upon a “new language strategy” in order to “respond to geopolitical priorities and to targets which need to be privileged, in particular in Africa”. English, Portuguese and “soon” Swahili will thus be developed.

On the other hand, as announced in October, RFI will cease to broadcast its programmes in six languages (German, Albanian, Polish, Serbo-Croat, Turkish and Laotian) for lack of an audience and on the basis of the judgment that these languages “are no longer relevant in view of geopolitical developments”.

Over the last few months, editorial staff in the Persian, Russian and Mandarin sections have mobilized to defend these languages, which they say are at risk of disappearing. Management has denied plans to end them, saying that, on the contrary, they are due to be developed by “strengthening broadcasting modes”, in particular the Internet.

RFI, which was set up in 1975, is the biggest French international 24-hour news radio station. It is based in Paris, comprises 19 foreign language sections and broadcasts in 74 countries, reaching 45m listeners. Four hundred journalists and producers are based in Paris, and 600 correspondents are on the ground.

(Source: AFP news agency, Paris, in French 1658 gmt 15 Jan 09 via BBC Monitoring)