Extraordinary general meetings of Radio France International (RFI), its Arabic subsidiary Monte Carlo Doualiya and l’Audiovisuel Extérieur de la France (AEF) have endorsed the merger of the radio station with the international news channel France 24, the AEF announced on Monday. In a statement, the AEF said that this “allows the creation of an official French broadcasting group of international dimensions”, after more than two years of conflict and a procedural battle conducted by the RFI unions against the merger.
The General Assembly of the AEF, the holding company, in fact consists of one person - its CEO Alain de Pouzilhac, who represents the sole shareholder, the State. “With this merger a new page opens, the constitution of a major international audiovisual group that is powerful and competitive”, reads the statement of the AEF co-signed by RFI, France 24 and Monte Carlo Doualiya.
The principle of creating the AEF was decided by President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009, but the process was punctuated by repeated strikes at RFI, as some of the employees were opposed to a merger with France 24 and the relocation of the radio station.
A redundancy plan as part of the merger was opened in early January, and some 102 applications for voluntary reundancy had been received by early February. The plan calls for a total of 126 job cuts at RFI, France 24 and Monte Carlo Doualiya.
In a letter to Prime Minister Francois Fillon, RFI trade unions had denounced the “second round of redundancies” launched by the management, with “126 further positions eliminated in addition to the 206 that were already in the 2009 Plan.”
(Source: AFP French via Google Translate via Media Network Weblog)
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