African state bans French TV show
Niger’s media regulator has banned the French channel Canal Plus from airing a romance-themed television show that the government says threatens the West African nation’s values. Authorities in neighboring Burkina Faso have already taken action against the broadcaster.
The Bachelor, the show in question, is “non-protective” of the country’s young population and “stigmatizes” African women, the Nigerien Superior Council of Communication said in a statement cited by the Turkish news outlet Anadolu.
“Following the request of the Minister of Communication... The Bachelor program is suspended in Niger... from this Tuesday, October 1, 2024,” Canal+ Niger announced on Wednesday.
The relationship reality show premiered in French-speaking Africa in October 2022 and involves an “attractive” single man who must find the best of 20 female candidates. The contestants must seduce the man in the hopes of being picked as his wife.
Season three premiered on Tuesday, September 10, but Niger’s military authorities have ordered that it be “no longer broadcast or rebroadcast.”
In June, Burkina Faso’s information agency reported that the country’s authorities had taken a “precautionary measure” by suspending two new Canal+ channels, which could have had “a significant cultural and social impact.”
Burkina Faso and Niger, both founding members of the newly formed Alliance of Sahel States (AES), along with Mali, have taken punitive measures against several French and Western media outlets in recent years. In June, the Burkinabe military government suspended TV5Monde for six months, accusing the French channel of spreading disinformation in violation of regulatory laws.
The West African state previously suspended it in April after it broadcast a Human Rights Watch report accusing the national army of killing civilians. The country temporarily banned radio broadcasts of BBC Africa and US-funded Voice of America (VOA) due to their coverage of a report that accused the national army of carrying out mass executions. The French newspapers Le Monde and Ouest-France, the British newspaper The Guardian, and the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) have all had their websites blocked “until further notice.”
France’s relations with Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have deteriorated significantly since the military takeovers in the West African states. All three former French colonies have severed defense ties with Paris, citing internal interference and French forces’ failure to combat a decade-long jihadist insurgency in the Sahel region.
