Monday evening, the C8 channel broadcast “Unplanned”, an American anti-abortion film. The CSA was seized and announced that it was going to investigate this file.
Fetuses struggling to survive, abortion scenes similar to bloody crime scenes, here is the content of the American film “Unplanned”, broadcast by the C8 channel Monday evening.
The Minister for Gender Equality, Elisabeth Moreno, To “firmly” this Tuesday condemned the broadcast of this anti-abortion film and considered that the channel had surrendered “guilty of the offense of obstruction” to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion).
The film #Unplanned currently broadcast on @ C8TV is a vile anti-abortion propaganda tool.
Progress for our society, the right to#IVG is a fundamental and inalienable right for all women.
This fiction goes against our values.#mybodymychoice
– Elisabeth Moreno (@ 1ElisaMoreno) August 16, 2021
Read also: #LachezNousLUterus: a hashtag to claim the right to abortion
The CSA seized
Asked by AFP, the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) indicated that it had received several referrals concerning this program and announced that it was going to investigate this file.
Produced by an evangelical Christian studio, the fiction “Unplanned” recounts the turnaround of a former American family planning executive who became an anti-abortion activist.
It had met with unexpected success when it was released in the United States in the spring of 2019 but also aroused strong criticism as to its veracity, particularly of an abortion scene showing a struggling fetus.
C8 “guilty of the offense of obstructing” abortion
“By agreeing to broadcast this type of program“, C8 “stands in solidarity with anti-choice movements and is guilty of the offense of obstruction condemned in our country“, said the Minister for Gender Equality in a press release, stressing that the film “puts forward scientific untruths above all and inexorably misleads the viewer”.
“I strongly condemn the distribution of this film” who “is an abject anti-abortion propaganda tool“, underlined Elisabeth Moreno, quoted in the press release.
The announcement of the film’s broadcast on C8, a channel of the Canal + group (a subsidiary of Vivendi) controlled by businessman Vincent Bolloré, had aroused strong reactions from feminist associations.
“No to hindrance, no to guilt“, also tweeted Monday evening the predecessor of Ms. Moreno in the portfolio of Gender Equality, Marlène Schiappa, now Minister Delegate for Citizenship.
A flop for the chain
According to Médiamétrie, “Unplanned” gathered in front of C8 an average of 304,000 viewers, i.e. an audience share (PDA) of 1.5%, a score much lower than that achieved by its competitor W9 with “The 12 works of Asterix” (4.8% of PDAs, on average over a million viewers).
The offense of obstructing abortion is punishable by a fine of 30,000 euros and two years’ imprisonment.
