Following his removal from French channel BFMTV, French-Moroccan journalist Rachid M’Barki has acknowledged receiving payment to cover subjects for the news channel he works at, at one of his hearings.
Following an 18-year tenure, Rachid M’Barki was dismissed from BFMTV and was the focus of an internal probe due to possible interference.
The channel responded to suspicions that the TV personality worked on material that did not respect editors’ standard validation procedures.
M’Barki was indicted on December 8, 2023, after being dismissed for grave misconduct. He admitted that he was being paid to work on stories for the channel, while he under the Brigade for the Repression of Economic Delinquency (BRDE) custody.
“I happened to receive sums of money. Yes, I recognize the facts of passive corruption,” he confessed, according to information unveiled by Le Parisien.
Text communications between a lobbyist and M’Barki were unveiled during the investigations. In the creation of the topics shown on the news channel, the latter would have also “played a role.”
Le Parisien reports that the journalist told police that he sent his SMS to his source ‘for information and not for approval’.
Even though the journalist first claimed that he had never received any financial compensation, the police discovered an image of his account on his informant’s phone along with evidence of a 2.000 euro transfer.
During his sixth hearing, the ex-TV host confessed and revealed that he had received money in return for his services. “On five or six occasions, and it was not for a particular reason but to thank me,” he confessed.
When the investigator asked him why he had accepted this money the first time, he replied “No doubt it was out of weakness. (…) It is a breach, even a slap in the face, of the journalist’s ethics.”
Throughout his revelations, M’Barki assured, by breaking down in tears that he had been “manipulated.”
Rachid M’Barki was first fired in February 2023 for interfering with the BFMTV channel’s operations. The decision was made by the channel’s administration and has sparked controversy ever since.
According to a Forbidden Stories investigation, M’Barki is connected to an informant who works for an Israeli misinformation organization.
Shame on such behaviors, which reflect the weak values of people he works for and with..