eurealist.co.uk

French referendum Yes side to get four times more airtime than No.

CSA the French media commission has decided to allocate air time based on the number of seats held by the political parties. This will be seen by the Yes campaigners as a fair judgment, because it reflects the popular vote gained by the parties at the election.

The faults rest, firstly, in the fact that those parties did not gain their votes solely because of their stance on the EU Constitution, but on any number of policy positions which would have been considered by the French voters. Also as the referendum is about replacing the Constitution this transcends any party political position, it is a simple Yes or No debate. Thus to allocate air time in this way is according to MP Henri Emmanuelli obviously undemocratic, especially as it results in the Yes campaign being given four times the coverage as the No campaign.

Whilst Chirac has called for all Frenchmen to take part in the debate, the CSA intervention has ensured that the TV coverage will be slanted heavily in favour of the Yes side of that debate.

In the UK the BBC and other broadcasters have not yet come to a decision on how to allocate airtime. But as we have already seen in the North East Regional Assembly referendum, with groups campaigning for a yes vote spending twice as much as the no campaign. The opinion that the funding or the coverage of these debates should be based on the political party standing in parliament, and not their position on the Constitution is already being considered. This disregards the fact that many Conservatives would vote for the Constitution and many Labour supporters would vote against, and the much deeper consideration that this referendum is not about which party we wish to be the government of the country, but about the very nature of government itself.