French President Emmanuel Macron has floated the idea of creating an official media “label”, claiming it would identify “trustworthy” journalism and help fight online “misinformation”.
Speaking to readers of the Ebra press group on November 28, a conglomerate that owns nine regional outlets across France, Macron insisted labelling news organisations amounts to a “democratic duty”.
In his view, young people must be guided away from untrustworthy internet websites and pushed back toward the established press, whose work is regulated and legally supervised.
According to him, this is the only real safeguard against error or manipulation, unlike social networks and independent websites, which he claims allow fake information to flourish unchecked.
“It is about making our young people understand, encouraging them, motivating them to turn toward press outlets, whether in physical, printed form or digital,” he said.
“Going to the website of a newspaper or a media outlet with actual journalists is not the same thing as going to some site that is unfamiliar to you, that is not known, not recognised as an information outlet,” he added.
Macron said the label would serve as a signal that journalists working on the publication have followed an “ethical code they uphold among themselves, and using a methodology built collectively and validated by their peers and third-party experts”.
The idea draws directly from Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI), an international certification designed to showcase media outlets deemed reliable.
According to RSF, the JTI is “an international standard, a label, for showcasing and promoting trustworthy journalism”.
It aims to help journalism combat declining audiences, mistrust of the media and falling revenues from advertising, subscriptions and purchases.
“Journalism is undergoing direct competition from manipulative content that proliferates in the digital space: propaganda, advertising, disinformation,” the RSF website reads.
Macron said the proposed label would provide “international recognition of the professionalism of our journalists and the rigour of our editorial teams”.
Backed by RSF’s reputation, he said, it would send a clear message to readers and advertisers: “We do what we say, and we do it with full transparency.”
He insisted enforcing such standards was “not just a promise, but a democratic duty”.
Macron’s comments are part of his broader war on misinformation he initiated in early October.
David Lisnard, Mayor of the city of Cannes, criticised Macron’s statements, arguing that he “crossed a fundamental line”.
“The temptation to label ‘good media’ reveals a particularly serious drift towards the suppression of freedoms. One that will have to be fought by all means if it translates into a project,” he said yesterday.
French President Emmanuel Macron said social media has abandoned “informational neutrality”, a phenomenon that is undermining democracy in this “time of crisis”. https://t.co/WHSEZFtZWe
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) October 31, 2025
