Is France’s most popular news channel, CNews, a hotbed of Nazis and clerical fascists? Well, judging by the cartoon below, which has been published by the weekly French TV guide and magazine Télérama, the answer would appear to be “yes”. The cartoon shows Pascal Praud, one of the channel’s best-known presenters, dressed in the brown uniform of the Nazi paramilitary organisation, the SA, and saying, “On CNews we are pluralists, we have all the shades from brown to black!”

Praud is accompanied by other CNews presenters and commentators. Geoffrey Lejeune, a frequent guest and editor of the weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, is likewise dressed in the brown uniform of the SA and sports a red-and-black Nazi-style armband, on which the swastika has been replaced by the CNews logo. The other members of the panel, including blonde CNews presenter Laurence Ferrari, are dressed in the black tunics of the clerical forces which infamously collaborated with the Nazis in Vichy France.
So, how exactly are CNews presenters and commentators supposed to be like Nazis or clerical fascists? Well, apart from the fact that some of them are indeed Catholic – like roughly two-thirds of the French population – this frequent viewer of CNews, who also happens to be fluent in German and to have spent a good portion of his adult life studying and writing on German fascism, does not have a clue.
Perhaps it is because in the aftermath of the October 7th massacres and even amidst the Israeli military operations in Gaza which followed, CNews has undoubtedly been the French news channel to remain most steadfast in its support of Israel.
Or perhaps it is because when the October 7th massacres sparked a remarkable surge of antisemitism in France itself, CNews reported on this and CNews moderators and commentators even wondered aloud why French President Emmanuel Macron chose not to attend a massive Rally Against Antisemitism which had been organised in response.
Or perhaps it is because when 16-year-old Thomas Perrotto was stabbed to death in an attack on a village ball in the south of France last November, CNews reported on the anti-white racist epithets which accompanied the attack and moderators and guests wondered why French authorities refused to publish the – as it would turn out, predominantly Arab – names of the suspects and insisted on presenting the incident as a “brawl”.
Or perhaps it is because when, time and again, French authorities refuse to treat the innumerable lone-wolf knife attacks with which France is plagued as acts of terror, preferring instead to describe the assailants as mentally disturbed, CNews moderators and guests have dared to suggest that this might just be a way of covering up their political or political-religious motives.
Who knows?
What is clear, at any rate, is that Télérama cartoonist Soulcié carefully selected just which CNews presenters to depict in his cartoon, since if he had put CNews’s other star presenters, the Tunisian-born Sonia Mabrouk and the Guadeloupean Christine Kelly, in Nazi uniforms or clerical tunics, this would have undoubtedly caused some cognitive dissonance for his public.

CNews also notably features many commentators and guests of Arab origin, such as the Moroccan-born commentator Naïma M’Faddel. Miraculously, like Mabrouk, they often find themselves in agreement with the supposed “fascists” on many of the above topics – as if individuals were able to think for themselves, rather than their ideas and opinions being a function of their ethnic origins or skin colour.
CNews was founded in 1999 as iTélé before being re-launched as CNews in 2017. It forms part of the Canal+ audiovisual group, France’s most important provider of pay television services, which is in turn controlled by the French media giant Vivendi. In December, CNews passed its rival BFM for the first time to become France’s most-watched news channel, a position it has regularly maintained since.
Perhaps not coincidentally, it shortly thereafter became the target of increasing attacks from rival media and the largely publicly-funded NGO Reporters sans frontières (‘Reporters Without Borders’). As alluded to in the Télérama cartoon, it is presently under investigation by the French regulator ARCOM for an alleged lack of “pluralism” and “independence” in its programming.
Robert Kogon is the pen name of a widely-published journalist covering European affairs. Subscribe to his Substack and find him on Bluesky.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Liberal Progressives are not content with having 95% of the media spouting their pretend to save the planet cultural marxist trash. They want the whole 100%. They want to make right wing thought illegitimate and even criminal, and something that all of polite society should shun. One great way to get people on your side is to call other people Nazi’s. It seems to work every time.
Indeed. Possibly perversely this gives me some hope – they know their case is weak and that the state of being they want to impose is antithetical to human nature, so they are desperately worried about anything that could undermine them.
It’s like when you get the authoritarians in government calling anyone who challenges their oppressive policies ”anti-democratic”, whilst they’re the very ones behaving in the most anti-democratic, cancel-culturetastic way possible! They just never tire of demonstrating what complete ruddy hypocrites they are and I cannot believe this is down to lack of self-awareness and not some kind of tactic they use because they’re all about establishing a new norm across society. But the double standards are just blatant. I mean, how can the so-called ‘far left’ and ‘far right’ both be ‘fascist’? It’s just become farcical now.
That’s because as history shows, it takes only one dissenting voice to bring the house of cards tumbling down.
It’s part of the relentless gaslighting of people who don’t fully confirm to every single one of the latest behavioural diktats.
You’re a transphobe, you’re a racist, you’re a bigot, you’re a Nazi sympathiser, you’re an anti-semite, you hold far right beliefs.
After years of tolerance towards ideas that we don’t necessarily agree with but are willing to live with, we are showered with all these insults and accusations.
It’s gaslighting plain and simple.
The trouble is, it partly works. Bien-pensant people I know chortle and snort about “Trump”, expecting me to guffaw along with them. When I ask them to name actual policies he has enacted that are terrible, they can’t. I was chatting to an acquaintance the other day about European politics. He’s from Greece, well educated and has fairly centrist beliefs – but crucially he is young and not paying enough attention. Ah, Meloni, she’s far right isn’t she? I asked him what he meant by far right and how the term could possibly have any meaning when it’s applied equally to leaders democratically elected in a law-governed country and generalissimos who come to power through military coups and have their opponents executed. Hopefully I made him think, but for every one of him there are thousands who just sleepwalk through life believing what they are told.
Don’t you find that sometimes you have to stop and think for a sec who are the ”fascists” and ”Nazis”, because these terms are getting thrown around all over the place ( usually by the actual fascists ) and the amount of projection is off the charts. This from Nazi Faeser ( she’ll never be ‘Nancy’ to me again! ) over in Germany. I mean, when you start to demonize farmers and literally anyone who challenges your policies as ”right-wing extremists” there is something seriously wrong and desperate in your outlook on the real world;
”As a part of her ongoing oppression campaign targeting the political opposition, Germany’s activist interior minister has announced that the state will take action to ban the assembly of ‘right-wing extremist’ groups—namely the ascendent AfD, its exponents, and any other group she considers a threat to the left-liberal order.
The radical measures, set to be implemented as a part of Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s 13-step plan to combat the so-called ‘extreme right,’ have been revealed by an information request submitted to the Federal Ministry of the Interior by the German portal Apollo News.
The bans will be enforced by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, which operates under the direction of Faeser’s ministry. New measures pave the way for the BfV to provide information it has concerning some ‘right-wing extremist’ organizers to local regulatory authorities, who will then face pressure to ensure that access to venues will be blocked.
Faeser’s ‘democracy promotion’ act has been sharply criticized by high-ranking members of the ruling traffic light coalition. Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki, a member of the liberal, pro-business Free Democrat Party, went so far as to call the proposed law “a threat to democracy.” Kubicki added,
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/germany-interior-minister-looks-to-ban-private-gatherings-of-right-wing-extremists/
My Italian friend spent an hour telling me about the draconian “covid” lockdowns in Italy and how she would have lost her teaching job if she hadn’t been “vaccinated” then told me
Meloni (who was not PM during “covid”) was a fascist. Sigh.
https://youtu.be/uK-kWRAVmRU?si=RWfAfK5bNhOsWQ4h
This is from Gad Saad’s book ‘The Parasitic Mind’
“Angela Merkal’s astounding open border policy granting close to a million Muslim immigrants entry into Germany could be seen as self-flagellation for Germany’s historical transgressions. Laced with typical progressive lunacy. What better way to make up for the Holocaust than by admitting “refugees” who frequently exhibit genocidal hatred of Jews.”
What is Britain making up for?
Whatever the abuser wishes – colonialism, slavery, climate change, racism, xenophobia… Whatever induces the most guilt. How about this?
Greta Thunberg
“This ongoing irresponsible behaviour will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind. You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to.
The UK, was very special due to its “mind-blowing historical carbon debt, (a reference to the country’s record as the birthplace of industrialisation). But this was also, because its claims of world-leading progress on cutting emissions are partly the result of “creative accounting” and are belied by the government’s plans for more high-emissions projects.
The UK’s active current support of new exploitation of fossil fuels, like for example the UK shale gas fracking industry, the expansion of its North Sea oil and gas fields, the expansion of airports, as well as the planning permission for a brand new coalmine, is beyond absurd,”
Response from Michael Gove:
“Your voice – still, calm and clear – is like the voice of our conscience, When I listened to you, I felt great admiration, but also responsibility and guilt. I am of your parents’ generation, and I recognise that we haven’t done nearly enough to address climate change and the broader environmental crisis that we helped to create.”
“What is Britain making up for?”
I think some of it is that “nice” people find it uncomfortable to face the fact that some countries and cultures are more successful than others by any measure that anyone cares about. They feel guilty about our success because it is not shared by everyone, and they want the whole world to be a wonderful place. I mean who doesn’t – but then it’s obvious that it cannot possibly be like that, and you just grow up and face reality, or not…
Post-war much of the French regime were ‘former’ members of the Vichy regime. Hence the Government’s dirigism – State direction of the economy and society – Benito’s doctrine.
They, along with the surviving former members of the German National Socialist regime and Italian Fascist regime, started the European Coal & Steel Community which begat the EEC which begat the EU – and selected and trained their successors which is why the EU so ressembles a Fourth Reich.
Democracy is the will of the people, just not those sorts of (predominantly white majority) people.