"The government is not going to create any particular label for the press. It is not, and never will be, its role to do so," the president said.

Emmanuel Macron insisted on Tuesday in the Council of Ministers that he had "never" considered creating a "state label" for the media, and "even less a ministry of Truth", as accused by Vincent Bolloré's media, the right and the far right.

"The government is not going to create any label specifically for the press. It is not, and never will be, its role to do so," said the head of state, according to remarks reported to the press by government spokesperson Maud Bregeon.

The President of the Republic "never stated that and never made those remarks," she insisted. "There are initiatives taken by the press, particularly those raised during the National Information Conference," but "no, the government is not going to create any label specifically for the press."

"Authoritarian temptation"

Two weeks ago in Arras, Emmanuel Macron mentioned to readers of the regional press this project for a label to distinguish sites and networks that produce information according to ethical rules from others.

But it's not up to the government to say "this is news, this isn't," he asserted, instead citing a labeling initiative already launched by the NGO Reporters Without Borders with the Journalism Trust Initiative. "It's not the state that should be verifying," otherwise "it becomes a dictatorship," he emphasized last week in Mirecourt, in the Vosges region.

But the media outlets of the conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré's group, subsequently echoed by the leaders of the right and far right, accused him of wanting to set up a "Ministry of Truth" and denounced a "totalitarian drift" or an "authoritarian temptation".

The Élysée Palace had already reacted on Monday evening in a video on X, deploring that "talking about fighting disinformation creates disinformation".