France’s media regulator says that state-funded Radio France is biased against National Rally after finding out that representatives of the National Rally (RN) were overwhelmingly relegated to overnight programming, raising questions about political neutrality within taxpayer-funded media institutions.
The audiovisual regulator Arcom announced today that it had issued a formal notice to Radio France for failing to comply with its legal obligations on political pluralism.
The decision follows an analysis of airtime on France Inter and France Info between January 1 and March 31, 2026.
According to the regulator, the RN’s speaking time was concentrated almost entirely during hours when few listeners were tuned in. Nearly 60 per cent of airtime allocated to National Rally representatives on France Inter was broadcast between midnight and 5:59 a.m. On France Info, the figure exceeded 70 per cent.
By contrast, Arcom concluded that the party was insufficiently represented during daytime programming, between 6 a.m. and midnight, despite its electoral weight in French politics.
The French right-wing party National Rally is the first party in the French parliament with 119 MPs. In 2024, the RN achieved its best-ever result in an election with 10,628,330 millions of votes.
Yet according to the regulator, listeners relying on the country’s flagship public radio stations during normal waking hours would have heard far less from RN representatives than the law requires.
Reacting to the decision, National Rally president Jordan Bardella accused Radio France of deliberately marginalising the party and its voters.
“Required to demonstrate political pluralism and impartiality, the public audiovisual service has therefore deliberately sidelined France’s leading party and its millions of voters: are we still in a functioning democracy?” Bardella said.
It was not an isolated incident. Arcom noted that Radio France had already been reminded of its obligations on the same issue in both 2025 and 2026. The latest ruling suggests a recurring pattern.
The announcement today touches on a broader debate about the role of public broadcasters in France today.
Defenders of the public media system often argue that institutions such as Radio France serve as neutral guardians of democratic debate, insulated from both market pressures and partisan interests. Critics mostly of the Right argued that these organisations reflect the political and cultural preferences of a narrow metropolitan elite concentrated in Paris.
Last month, right-wing MP Charles Allonce published a report the current state of public broadcasting in the country.
The document comprises over 550 pages where he argues that public broadcasting is in a financial and administrative “crisis ,” but also due to a “loss of touch with the expectations of the French people.”
He called for a “total or partial overhaul of the operations of the major entities in the sector, starting with France Télévisions and Radio France,” to contribute to an effort to save more than one billion euros in the sector.
The president of France Télévisions, Delphine Ernotte Cunci, at the time criticised the “biased” conclusions.
