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Rabat – Julien Dray, a member of the French Socialist Party (PS) National Bureau, called out French “establishment media,” and its coverage of the “historic” Moroccan elections on September 8.
Appearing on French television channel CNEWS to discuss the ongoing trial of the perpetrators of the 2015 Paris attacks, Dray mentioned the spectacular failure of Morocco’s Islamist party in the country’s latest general elections.
“I know this may be off topic, but I’ll go ahead and make this point,” Dray began, as he drifted from addressing the meaning of the ongoing trial of terrorists in France to the wider significance of the results of the Moroccan elections. “Of course there is the trial [of the perpetrators of the 2015 Paris attacks], but in the fight against Islamism, all is not bad news.”
Dray’s good news is that, as Morocco’s elections have shown, Islamists can be routed in elections.
“For the first time, through the ballot box, the Islamist movement has been defeated, flatly defeated. And we should be happy about this. The Islamists who have been in power for ten years have gone from 125 deputies to 13,” he said. “What happened in Morocco is not nothing, especially considering Morocco’s recent normalization with Israel, but French conformist media chose to ignore it.”
The French politician went on to express his “surprise” at the absence of substantive media coverage of the Moroccan elections in recent days. According to Dray, the emphatic dethroning of the Islamists from political power in a “democratic election that saw a significant increase in voter turnout” should have made headlines in France.
Instead, he argued, French media chose to “gloss over the historical” elections, failing to stress that “the Moroccan people collectively ousted the Islamist movement embodied by the Justice and Development Party (PJD), after a decade in power.”
The Algerian Factor
While Dray confined himself to decrying the French media’s silence on Morocco’s “historic” elections, his co-guest on the CNEWS set, French lawyer and political activist Gilles-William Goldnadel, advanced a theory of why French media behaved as they did.
According to Goldnadel, the attitude of French journalists and intellectuals toward Algeria plays a central role in how France’s “conformist” media scene covers Morocco – and North Africa in general. He appeared to argue the majority of France’s leading media organizations are Left-leaning and only interested in a certain type of progressive, leftist discourse.
“Algeria has built its political culture on resentment against France, while Morocco looks to the future, which does not please the conformist French media,” he said.
The lawyer also explained that French media are only interested in covering the controversies happening in Morocco, while remaining silent and “sparing” grave incidents occurring in Algeria.
Moreover, the fact that Algeria is a republic and Morocco is a monarchy is a major factor in the media portrayal, “despite Morocco being more democratic than the republic of Algeria.”
The activist concluded by drawing attention to the hypocrisy of French press coverage of Morocco, stating that “there is a lot of talk about the Sahrawi Republic in France, while there is no mention of Kabylia.”
