Did France Télévisions treat itself to nights in luxury hotels at the Cannes Film Festival? The question came back to the table yesterday, during the last day of the Commission of Inquiry. The president of France Télévisions, Delphine Ernotte, is in fact at the heart of a controversy linked to accommodation costs considered excessive during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
According to several elements revealed, she and several leaders of the group would have stayed in luxury suites at the Majestic hotel, with rates reaching around 1,700 euros per night.
The overall cost of these stays has fueled controversy, with some citing a significant bill for an audiovisual group financed in part by public money.
In 2024, a union filed a complaint, denouncing in particular: a possible abuse of corporate assets an embezzlement of public funds The case took on a new dimension at the beginning of 2026 with the opening of a judicial investigation in Paris, entrusted to an investigating judge
Delphine Ernotte explained yesterday, before the Commission, that these hotel rooms had in fact cost nothing to society, because it had resorted to “bartering”. Bartering designates a system of exchange without money, where goods or services are exchanged directly between two parties.
In the media, this often involves financing programs by an advertiser in exchange for advertising visibility.
For example, a brand finances a show and obtains advertising space in return. This model makes it possible to reduce production costs for chains or producers.
Bartering is therefore both an economic and marketing tool based on exchange rather than traditional payment.
For Delphine Ernotte, the advertising spaces that were offered in exchange for hotel rooms were no longer worth anything, because they were unsold. Clearly, either France Télé was doing this, or these spaces were lost.
Explanations which did not seem to have really convinced Charles Alloncle…
