CNews viewership and political divide in France, Digi Mart USA News (Levallois-Perret, France): In a neighborhood bistro in Levallois-Perret, near Paris, the television above the bar is switched off. Two years ago it continuously broadcast CNews, a familiar background presence for customers.
“It was too anxiety-inducing for them, their eyes were glued to the screen and the news… And we were stressed by it too,” the owner says.
The formula still works for many viewers. In October, channel 14 kept its status as the leading news channel, tied with BFMTV at 3.6% audience share, slightly edging out its rival by a few thousandths of a point.
CNews celebrated a “monthly record among 25–49-year-olds” with a 2.4% share, but the trend is mainly toward an aging audience.
As the media outlet Les Jours noted in January, 85% of the channel’s audience is over 50, and its average viewer is 64 years old. Can it be concluded that CNews viewers are all right-wing “boomers”?
Yes, but it is more complicated than that.
“We cannot speak of a social marker; there is no typical CNews viewer profile,” explains Jérémie Derhi, a researcher in information sciences. “It is more of an identity and cultural marker.” Some viewers have “very conservative tendencies and see the questioning of their social norms in today’s world,” the researcher notes.
“They are trying to recover a France they once knew.”
Among them is Michel, 79, a senior executive and longtime Le Figaro subscriber, who denounces the left’s “hold on public service” and says he would consider “voting Le Pen in the second round,” agreeing with the National Rally on insecurity and immigration. “It really annoys my wife that I watch CNews,” the retiree admits.
“But sometimes they cover subjects you don’t see elsewhere, like attacks against far-right people,” he points out.
Michel has always voted right-wing, for the RPR, UMP and Les Républicains, and even for Macron in the last two presidential elections. An admirer of Sarah Knafo, whose “intellectual level” he praises, he nonetheless considers some CNews commentators “too extremist” and regularly prefers the “more professional” tone of BFMTV.
Learning the scale of the petition calling for the channel’s removal, the retiree is surprised and indignant, calling the idea “far-fetched.”
Filed in June on the National Assembly’s dedicated platform, the petition has gathered nearly 850,000 signatures to date, with a huge surge after the racist attack in Trappes. For Eva*, 27, who denounces the “false information” regularly broadcast on CNews sets, the demand is “legitimate.” In the living room of her father, a 60-year-old from Aveyron and son of Spanish immigrants, the television is almost always tuned to Bolloré’s channel.
“It is often a source of conflict,” admits Eva, who identifies more with the left. “He talks to me about anti-white racism and a lack of immigration control… When I try to debate with him, I don’t find him objective, because his arguments come from what he hears on the sets.”
“When you join one of the channel’s flagship programs, you find a friendly atmosphere, almost like at the bistro, and a sense of closeness develops,” Derhi explains. This reassuring presence, combined with an “ideological focus and a nostalgic, reactionary reading of current events,” can make some viewers addicted.
On Facebook, the group “Je soutiens CNews” has around 145,000 members, many of whom rush to defend the channel. “It’s the channel that gives the news without distortion and tells the pure truth,” one user insists, while another describes it as a channel of “common sense, clarity and patriotism.” Some express affection for Pascal Praud and the “good-natured” atmosphere of his set, while others reject the “censorship of the far left.” One asks: “If the channel were truly racist, it would have been shut down immediately, wouldn’t it?”
That is the suggestion of media historian Alexis Lévrier, who believes the sanctions regime applied to C8 last year should also have applied to CNews. “The channel’s operation is contrary to the 1986 law on freedom of communication, which does not provide for such a strong angle,” he asserts.
“It should serve all French people, but it ultimately serves an ideology that targets ethnic groups and entire segments of the population.”
What gives CNews its strength is also what produces a “repellent effect” among those who want to see the channel disappear. “If racist discourse is structural, it is the distortion of the principle of freedom of expression” that defines Bolloré’s channel, according to Lévrier.
He argues that through its rejection of institutions, CNews “calls into question the existence of the democratic model,” and that some French people would be “ready for that,” while others are determined to fight this danger.
No one is indifferent to the channel’s content. “Not watching CNews is also a way of positioning oneself socially,” Derhi says.
The repeated opening of Overton windows strengthens the channel’s audiences, and “there is a very strong relationship of love and hate with its programs,” adds Lévrier. In 2025, it was reported that a CNews viewer stayed on the channel for an average of 42 minutes without changing channels, compared with only 24 minutes on BFMTV.
Watching CNews means being loyal and feeling part of a circle of people who do not shy away from “the right information,” the kind other media supposedly hide.
Deputies will vote next Tuesday, November 10, on what action to take on the petition launched to “remove” Vincent Bolloré’s channel. It is led by Alexandre Portier of Les Républicains, chair of the Cultural Affairs Committee, the same committee that gave Charles Alloncle his (lengthy) moment in the spotlight by grilling the entire public broadcasting sector.
The Ciottist deputy will likely be less aggressive on the CNews case.
*The first name has been changed.
