Volt files a complaint with ALIA against RTL for unequal media treatment

Volt Luxembourg is concerned about RTL's coverage of the European election campaigns. While the Luxembourg-language site publishes all the interviews with the candidates and the various formats offered, the French-language site (infos.rtl.lu) and the English-language site (today.rtl.lu) only offer a selection of these interviews.

This selective approach deprives a significant part of Luxembourg's population, comprising almost 48% of foreigners who speak French, English and other languages, of fair access to electoral information.

This inequality of treatment is not only undemocratic, it continues to widen the gap between citizens and the political class, accentuating the feeling of marginalisation of foreign residents.

Freedom of the press is a fundamental pillar of our democracy, but so too is the political courage needed to ensure that all citizens are heard, informed and represented. Volt Luxembourg believes that to address this democratic deficit, it is essential that all RTL language platforms present interviews with all candidates in a consistent manner. If RTL requires more resources to achieve this, they should be provided. We must ensure that our foreign citizens are included in the public debate and not left behind.

This is why we have lodged a formal complaint with ALIA (Luxembourg's independent broadcasting authority) to look into the matter and take the necessary steps to ensure fair and impartial media coverage on all RTL platforms.

We would stress that this question is not an attack on RTL. We recognise their editorial freedom, and do not believe that their choice to make certain content available and others not, is malicious. However, we insist that media receiving public funding have a duty to give fair coverage to all parties. We are fighting for more resources for all media platforms, even if RTL is the subject of our complaint to ALIA.