Fox News 📺 Becomes the Unwilling Star of a French TV Satire
Fox News Becomes the Unwilling Star of a French TV Satire
France Mocks FoxNews "No Go Zones" #FoxNewHypocrites
PARIS — Mockery is a national weapon in France, so when an American cable news channel raised false alarms about rampant lawlessness in some Paris neighborhoods — proclaiming them “no-go zones” for non-Muslims, avoided even by the police — a popular French television show rebutted the claims the way it best knew how: with satire, spoofs and a campaign of exaggeration and sarcasm.
The
show, “Le Petit Journal,” is a French version of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” — irreverent and reliant on mock correspondents who showcase the foibles of the high and mighty.
Usually “Le Petit Journal” reserves its venom for French politicians and the local news media. But in the days after the terrorist attacks in Paris that left 17 dead, including 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, it set its sights on a trans-Atlantic target, America’s Fox News, after the channel claimed that swaths of England and
France were ruled according to Shariah.
“They did this on a weekend when all France and Paris was in a state of shock,” said Yann Barthès, 40, who has hosted the show since it began in 2004. “I cried.” But, he said, it was also “irritating, so we chose humor to campaign against Fox News.”
One episode of “Le Petit
Journal” featured fake Fox News correspondents screaming about the
dangers to be found on the streets and in the kebab shops of Paris.Credit
Canal+
“It’s more effective than being upset,” Mr. Barthès said.
On
Saturday, Fox News apologized four times on the air for its reports
about the no-go zones, acknowledging that there was no reason to believe
that they existed. It called the reports an “error” and apologized to
“any and all,” including “the people of France.”
It
is hard to say whether the apologies were the result of “Le Petit
Journal’s” mockery; a campaign instigated by the program to inundate Fox
News with emails; or Fox News’s realization that its reporting, which
reinforced a popular conservative warning about a purported spread of
Shariah in the Western world, was wrong.
In
a statement Monday, Michael Clemente, an executive vice president at
the network, said: “We issued a correction and apology across several
platforms, so that any viewers who may have tuned in to the earlier
programming would have a chance to hear our corrected reporting.”
Before
the apologies, Mr. Barthès and his “correspondents” hounded Fox News,
which is not widely available on French television. Mr. Barthès’s show,
which has about 3 million viewers and follows in the satirical tradition
of Charlie Hebdo, but in a much gentler style, showed generous portions
of the Fox clips where the no-go zones were discussed, providing French
translations.
Mr. Barthès reviewed his script in his dressing room before going on stage. He has hosted the show since it began in 2004.Credit
Capucine Granier-Deferre for The New York Times
Their
comics confronted Fox News correspondents when they spotted them
reporting live in Paris. In one video, two of the show’s correspondents
pretended to be American journalists venturing into supposedly forbidden
areas and, in slapstick fashion, cowering by a Turkish kebab shop and a
couscous restaurant and falling to the ground at the sound of a
jackhammer.
Representatives
of “Le Petit Journal” also showed up at the New York offices of Fox
News on Thursday to seek comment, Mr. Barthès said, until security
turned them away.
Mr.
Barthès said that his show was unable to obtain any response from Fox
News, so he turned to his viewers for help, giving the email addresses
of Fox executives. When the show posted the information on Twitter, he
said, they had 7,000 retweets in five minutes.
The
theme was picked up by others on social media who expressed mock horror
at the “danger” in Paris. A food guide site mapped the best places to
dine in the so-called lawless zones, including a bakery where the owner
had won awards for baguettes.
The
commotion began this month when Steve Emerson, identified as a
terrorism expert, told the host Sean Hannity, “there are no-go zones”
throughout Europe ruled by Muslims. He then elaborated in an interview
with another Fox host, Jeanine Pirro, claiming that the entire city of
Birmingham, England, was a place where “non-Muslims simply don’t go in.”
On
the day the Charlie Hebdo attackers were killed, Nolan Peterson, who on
his website describes himself as a freelance writer and a combat
veteran, went on Fox News on and identified what he called 741
Muslim-dominated “no-go zones” around France and said the areas reminded
him of his time in Afghanistan and Iraq.Even the British prime
minister, David Cameron, reacted to the Birmingham claim, saying, “When I
heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge.” He called Mr. Emerson
“an idiot.”
Muslim
leaders say that Muslims are often the victims of attacks, especially
since the Paris killings, which were carried out by Islamic militants.
The head of a French organization known as the National Observatory
Against Islamophobia called for protection by the state, saying there
had been “116 anti-Muslim acts, including 28 incidents at mosques and 88
threats,” in the two days after the Jan. 7 shooting.
Fox
was abject in its apologies, as was Mr. Emerson. Julie Banderas, a Fox
anchor, said that “over the course of this last week, we have made some
regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe,
particularly with regard to England and France.”
“Now
this applies especially to discussions of so-called no-go zones, areas
where non-Muslims allegedly are not allowed in and police supposedly
won’t go,” Ms. Banderas continued. “To be clear, there is no formal
designation of these zones in either country and no credible information
to support the assertion that there are specific areas in these
countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.”
Apologies were issued on-air three other times.
Carly
Shanahan, a spokeswoman for Fox News in New York, said the
communications office never received a query by telephone or email from
“Le Petit Journal.” Mr. Barthès said the show had made repeated
attempts, including his own emails.
Mr.
Barthès said he was not sure whether his show could take credit for the apologies. “The important thing is that we really had fun,” Mr. Barthès said. “It’s important for the French audience to know about this. They don’t really know Fox News, and they think it’s an enormous channel, very American, with announcers with big voices and blonde women who look like Barbies.”
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