France’s conservative powerhouse CNews has stormed to the top of the news ratings in 2025, snagging a whopping 3.4% audience share to crush rivals like BFMTV at 2.8%, LCI at 2%, and Franceinfo at 0.9%—proving the French public is hungry for unfiltered right-wing takes in a media swamp dominated by leftist drivel.
Owned by billionaire Vincent Bolloré through Canal+ Group, the channel—launched just in 2017—has skyrocketed like a French Fox News, with CEO Gérald-Brice Viret saying, “The facts are clear: the French people have chosen us,” and vowing to keep shaking up “French democracy” in 2026.
Right-wing firebrand Éric Ciotti hailed it as a “historic result,” blasting it as a massive win for free speech against the elite chokehold. But the elites aren’t taking this lying down: CNews is under fire from France’s media watchdog Arcom, slapped with a formal notice for daring to air hard truths on immigration and Islam that could supposedly “incite discrimination.”
State broadcasters France Télévisions and Radio France are suing Bolloré’s empire for €1.5 million over “defamatory” coverage and “unfair competition,” while Arcom probed the channel in April 2025 for its no-holds-barred reporting on Marine Le Pen’s conviction, vowing tighter reins on “pluralism and independence.”
Detractors smear it as “far-right” propaganda, but the surging viewership—700,000 tuning into hits like Pascal Praud’s L’Heure des Pros—shows the public couldn’t care less about the pearl-clutching. As Bolloré’s bold vision reshapes the landscape, it’s a stinging rebuke to the establishment’s grip, signaling that conservative voices are here to stay—and dominate.
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