AFP CEO deems certain accusations 'defamatory' on coverage of Israel-Hamas conflict
Agence France-Presse CEO Fabrice Fries considers it "serious and defamatory" that the agency has been accused of being "a vector for the rise of anti-Semitism" during controversies over its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, during a hearing before the French Senate.
Transcript
00:00 Most critics in France are evoking a pro-Palestinian bias,
00:03 but some have not hesitated to make the agency a vector of the rise of anti-Semitism.
00:10 These accusations are crazy.
00:12 They are not just words on a television set,
00:16 since an elected representative of the Republic took them into account.
00:21 The article cleverly made it clear that a new order had just been given internally
00:27 to prescribe the use of the word "Hamas" as if it were a customary order.
00:33 What the article did not say was that this order had been around for more than 20 years,
00:38 and that it applied to all movements without exception,
00:41 Boko Haram, Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, and so on.
00:45 [BLANK_AUDIO]