Just in: Radio France chief is condemned to jail – but keeps his job

Just in: Radio France chief is condemned to jail – but keeps his job

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norman lebrecht

January 15, 2018

Mathieu Gallet, president of Radio France, was given a one-year suspended sentence today and a 20,000 Euros fine for exercising favouritism in his previous job as head of the National Audiovisual Institute.

Gallet says he will appeal.

In the meantime, there is no threat to his position at Radio France. On the contrary, he is heading for promotion to a joint radio-TV role.

 

It so happens that he is a good friend of President Macron.

Read Le Monde.

Plus ca change.

 

Comments

  • Bruce says:

    A suspended sentence is not jail. (Maybe this is different outside the US?)

  • herrera says:

    You know how many politicians and prominent figures in France have been condamné and still hold high positions and celebrated? It’s become a badge of honor.

    Honoré de Balzac: “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime.”

  • Henry III says:

    The entire French system is so totally rotten and there are different rules for the ‘elite’ and other rules for the majority. Giving Mathieu Gallet a suspended sentence has no meaning in France, just a slap on the wrist and a way of making it appear that “justice” was done. This same Mathieu Gallet was earlier accused of using an exorbitant sum of taxpayer money to decorate his office, demanding imported woods and other over the top furnishings. There too, he only received a slap on the wrist and nothing more, as he kept his job and his palatial office in that circumstance. France is still operating as it once did in the 18th Century, where the elite have impunity and the rest of the society has to tow the line. Add to that, that it is the French society in general who must support one of the world’s heaviest tax burdens, yet rank poorly in education and many other public services, except for health care. When will that nation wake up and see the injustice and total decadence of their putrid system? Or perhaps living in a perverse 21st Century version of the mid 18th Century appeals to them in some sick way.

  • simonelvladtepes says:

    He is very handsome.

  • Clarrieu says:

    Wonder what you mean using (and not for the first time) this formula “Plus ca change” Norman… It has no sense, nor is it correct french…

    • CJ says:

      Norman is right, the complete expression is “Plus ça change plus c’est la même chose”. It comes from the writer Alphonse Karr (1875).

      • Clarrieu says:

        Okay, but then it’s absolutely necessary to have the three dots “…” after it. Otherwise one doesn’t really get it.

        • CJ says:

          I thought so too, but it seems that, in English, it can be used like that, without the dots, as an anapodoton (ellipsis, like “When the cat’s away”). The only thing missing was the cedilla (“ça”). 🙂

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