News Round-Up: France Shuts Down TV Station, Sweden Goes after Encrypted Messaging Apps and Germany’s Merz Betrays the Voters
Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.
Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:
Germany’s new chanchellor-to-be Merz makes a quick U-turn on immigration.
Freedom of expression in France: state shuts down right-wing TV station.
Sweden wants backdoor to encrypted messaging services.
Deutsche Börse CEO: EU needs a permanent CBDC.
Poland points to growing violence due to foreign criminal gangs.
Germany’s new chanchellor-to-be Merz makes a quick U-turn on immigration
“On the first day of my tenure as chancellor, I will instruct the interior ministry to impose permanent border controls with all our neighbors and refuse all attempts at illegal entry,” Merz said in a speech just a bit over a month ago on January 23. He promised an “effective entry ban” for individuals lacking valid travel documents, including those seeking asylum.
Before the elections, this was his response to Germans’ growing concern about rising immigration numbers and the brutal and violent crime, including sexual harassment and rape, associated with it. Before the election the CDU even broke the “firewall” and cooperated with anti-immigration AfD (Alternative for Germany), a party labelled far right by the mainstream politicians and the media, on an immigration related vote in the Bundestag. However, the bill was still rejected.
Now the elections are over, CDU and Merz won with 28,6% of the vote, leaving AfD to second place with 20,8%.
The firewall surrounding AfD is back on and not only that – Merz, eyeing coalition with the SPD has made a quick U-turn on his stance on immigration. Merz said on Monday that “none of us are talking about border closures” to deal with illegal migration, according to The European Conservative.
This might mean that a lot of German voters now feel betrayed. In fact, polling strongly suggests that many Germans support the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD) stance on limiting migration and refugee numbers, and believe the party understands the growing sense of insecurity among citizens better than others. The fact that the AfD finished in the second place in the election with more than a fifth of the vote – just eight points below the CDU – is also indicative of a frustration with establishment failings on border (non-)control.
Merz’s statement prompted angry claims on social media that he was already going back on pre-election pledges. Anticipating such criticism, the CDU boss – saying that “this was claimed at times during the election campaign” – suggested that media outlets exaggerated his migration stance ahead of the national vote.
But even if that were true, Merz was happy to go along with this portrayal right up until the polling day. Instead of refuting these claims when they were made, he waited hours after voting booths closed to keep the appeal of conservative beliefs alive until the last minute.
Freedom of expression in France: state shuts down a right-wing TV station
The French Council of State has confirmed its closure of the right-wing TV channel C8, setting a dangerous precedent of state censorship in the media, The European Conservative writes. Protests are growing from public figures who are concerned about the increasing and institutionalised restrictions on freedom of expression.
The C8 channel, owned by the Catholic billionaire Vincent Bolloré, had been on probation for several weeks following a decision by the media regulatory authority, ARCOM, to withdraw its broadcasting licence. The channel had attempted an administrative appeal, which has now been rejected by the Council of State. It ceased broadcasting definitively on the evening of February 28th.
Until now, C8 occupied a privileged place in the French audiovisual landscape. The Canal+ group, owned by Vincent Bolloré and the operator of the channel, denounced the decision as “unprecedented in the history of DTT [Digital Terrestrial Television], leading to the outright ousting of the C8 channel, which has been part of the audiovisual landscape for nearly 20 years, always ranking as the leading DTT channel and attracting more than 9 million cumulative viewers every day.”
The closure of C8 opens a major Pandora’s box for freedom of expression in France.
Many right-wing politicians and media personalities have expressed outrage at ARCOM’s decision and its confirmation by the Council of State.
Sweden wants backdoor to encrypted messaging services
Swedish government has proposed a data retention law that would mandate backdoors for law enforcement access to encrypted messaging services like Signal and WhatsApp, Cyber Insider reports.
The Swedish Security Service (Säpo) and the National Police Authority have expressed support for the measure, arguing that access to encrypted communications is critical for crime prevention. However, Försvarsmakten (the Swedish Armed Forces) and cybersecurity experts warn that such a requirement would introduce significant security vulnerabilities.
Signal’s president, Meredith Whittaker, stated in an interview with Swedish news outlet SVT Nyheter that the company would rather leave the Swedish market than compromise its encryption model.
Signal, operated by the nonprofit Signal Foundation, is widely recognized for its commitment to privacy and security through end-to-end encryption – ensuring that only the sender and recipient can read messages. Whittaker emphasized that introducing a backdoor would undermine this encryption, exposing user data to potential breaches.
Sweden’s proposal reflects an increasing global push for government-mandated access to encrypted data. This case bears similarities to the UK government’s recent backdoor order against Apple. The UK compelled Apple to disable Advanced Data Protection (ADP) — its end-to-end encryption feature for iCloud backups — after secretly issuing a technical capability notice under the Investigatory Powers Act. Apple refused to weaken encryption globally and instead disabled ADP entirely for UK users.
If Sweden’s proposed law passes, Signal’s withdrawal could set a precedent, prompting other secure communication platforms to reconsider their presence in the country.
Deutsche Börse CEO: EU needs a permanent CBDC
German securities market place Deutsche Börse CEO Stephan Leithner called for a permanent digital euro, citing its role in financial stability, efficiency and European Union (EU) autonomy, according to Cointelegraph.
In a policy paper published on February 15, Leithner outlined a 10-step strategy to transform the EU’s Capital Markets Union (CMU) into a Savings and Investments Union (SIU), with a central bank digital currency (CBDC) at its core. Leithner sees the launch of a permanent CBDC as a key element of the EU’s digital agenda and as a crucial component of its financial strategy.
Speaking about the EU’s policy framework and broader approach toward digital thought leadership, the Deutsche Börse CEO said that the European Central Bank (ECB) and national central banks must work together to ensure that the digital euro enriches the region’s capital markets ecosystem.
“The ECB’s joint approach with national central banks around a central bank digital currency will facilitate exploration of the most suitable solutions and truly enrich the EU’s capital markets ecosystem,” he said.
He also highlighted the need for technological developments around “cash on ledger” or “programmable payments” systems to ensure seamless interconnection between the EU’s permanent CBDC and existing payment systems and services.
While the EU is moving ahead with the digital euro, US President Donald Trump ended and in fact prohibited the establishment, issuance, circulation, and use of a CBDC within the jurisdiction of the United States. We have written more about the threats of such centrally controlled digital currency in an article based on the interview with Dr. Aaron Kheriaty.
Poland points to growing violence due to foreign criminal gangs
Poland’s interior minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, admitted that Poland has a problem with criminal groups composed of foreigners. The politician, who belongs to the left-center Civic Platform (KO) party of Donald Tusk, is now talking of deportations, Remix News writes.
“There is brutal crime being imported. There is not a week that goes by without news of brutal fights, brutal actions. Most often, these are actions between members of these gangs,” Siemoniak said. “We are talking about hard crime here, which we have to deal with,” he added.
He also said that these foreign gangs take over various areas of crime: drug trafficking, weapons, extortion, and use brutal methods while doing that. Georgians appear to have an especially high rate of offending and have built criminal organizations in the country, according to the crime statistics.
As one of the measures, Siemoniak talked about deportations of foreigners. There were over 8,000 deportations from Poland last year.
The interview with Prof. Happer was brilliant.
The news round-up cataloguing the suicide of European society was depressing. Whither the renaissance, the enlightenment and all that? Retrograding to medieval times will not be pleasant.