The reboot of France 24, with a new programming schedule, had been postponed for a week to minimize any disruption to its new look and schedule. When the news channel did relaunch on March 4, however, a quarter of an hour before the 6 am news, the disruption suddenly began. Without notice, which they are not required to give, technicians working for Red Bee Media France, the service provider France 24 has used since 2006, went on strike.
Since then, the international broadcaster's channels in French, English and Arabic, have experienced daily turmoil, as more shifts have been affected by the strike. While a meeting was scheduled between Red Bee's management and its employees on Thursday, March 21, only the third meeting in the two-and-a-half weeks of strikes, the end of the action does not yet seem to be in sight.
The technicians list many grievances for their walkouts: "successive contracts [between Red Bee and France 24] negotiated on the cheap," "increasing workload with no pay rise," "staff cuts and merging of positions." Of the 80 employees subcontracted by the news channel, some 60 of them are taking part in the strike – including all those working in the master control.
They are not striking against the new program schedule or the channel's new look. Instead, it's the schedule reform for staff and "an increased workload with no compensation," one member of the strikers' delegation told Le Monde. "We hold France 24 equally responsible for having totally forgotten the technicians in the elaboration of its project, as well as Red Bee for having validated it without taking care to protect its employees," they said in a press release.
'Correspondents in a panic'
Their claim was disputed by Red Bee's director general, Stéphane Grandvarlet. Not only, he said, were there "more than five months of discussion" to prepare for the change, but the work increase would not, in his view, be insurmountable. "The time spent in front of the master control increases, on weekdays, from 40% to 50% of the time spent in the company, and from 33% to 50% on weekends," he said.
Meanwhile, France 24, unable to grant a budget extension, is cautiously making sure that a dialogue is established between the two parties. There is uncertainty weighing on the newsroom and "putting correspondents in a panic," according to one journalist, sympathetic to the strikers but concerned for journalists abroad whose job insecurity is worsening. In the fall of 2023, the scheduling reform had already prompted a strike notice from all unions, though they did not act on it. Then, in December, by a vote of no confidence in management and a two-day strike called by the CGT union.