Interference for benefit of Makhzen regime: BFM TV dismisses Moroccan journalist Rachid M’Barki
By: Hana Saada
Algiers- The journalist and presenter of BFM TV, Rachid M’Barki, accused of serving the propaganda of the Makhzen, has been dismissed by the French news channel, its general manager Marc-Olivier Fogiel announced on Thursday.
The news channel also filed a complaint against X for “passive corruption and breach of trust”.
Back on January 11, 2023, and accused of having disseminated biased, oriented and invalidated information, the 54-year-old Franco-Moroccan presenter was suspended by the management of the French channel, following an alert given by a journalist from Radio France who worked on the vast “Story Killers” investigation coordinated by the Forbidden Stories consortium.
The first news channel in France had opened an internal investigation in January because of these doubts. Press revelations, including the “Story Killers” investigation conducted, in part, by journalists from Le Monde, showed that “the presenter is suspected of having broadcast, on several occasions during the past year, subjects which had not been validated by the channel’s editor-in-chief, possibly on behalf of foreign governments”.
Further, the investigation revealed that BFM TV had broadcast information provided by a disinformation agency run by a Zionist agency.
Investigative journalists were able to meet a manager of this agency, referred to as “Team Jorge”. Dubbed as the mastermind behind these operations to disseminate this “information” distilled by the Zionist disinformation agency, he told them, with supporting demonstration, that he could automatically create fake online accounts, automatically generate content on social networks or hack emails or Telegram accounts, to influence election campaigns in particular.
He is also called “Michael”, “Joyce Gamble” or “Coral Jaime” and has several email addresses and telephone numbers in different countries, but is actually called “Tal Hanan” and is the head of two companies operating in the security and intelligence: Sol Energy and Denoman.
Among other things, he is described as an explosives specialist who served in the special forces and as a former Zionist army liaison officer with the command of the special forces of the United States’ Sixth Fleet.
In the case of Rachid M’Barki on BFM TV, the briefs broadcast on the air were intended, in particular, to serve the propaganda of the Makhzen.
Subsequently, the French channel had opened an internal investigation and questioned Rachid M’Barki. Present on the air since the creation of BFM TV in 2005, the journalist recognized operations of “entryism” and confessed a “journalistic error of judgment” which would have led him to “do a favor to a friend”.
The media particularly criticized him for broadcasting a subject relating to an economic forum between Morocco and Spain organized in June 2022, and in which the journalist defends the Makhzen’s theses concerning Western Sahara.
In a video widely shared on social networks, journalist Rachid M’Barki evokes the holding of this forum in the occupied city of Dakhla which he presented as part of the Moroccan territory.
According to the general manager of BFM TV, Marc-Olivier Fogiel, the presenter “managed to ask for (some) images at the last minute” to illustrate briefs, “once the editor-in-chief was taken on another installment and had validated all of his diary. Following the findings of these investigations, the journalist was dismissed from the channel.
