A Christmas mass is to change the image of the city. The celebration, which will take place in the church of Trappes, is to be broadcast this year by the C8 or CNews channels, reports Le Parisien on Thursday November 25. This followed an intervention by the prefect of the Yvelines department, Jean-Jacques Brot, with Vincent Bolloré, the head of the television channel. According to Croix l’Hebdo, the prefect protested against the image painted of the community by the news channel and its columnists. The community is regularly mentioned because of problems with the lack of security or Islamism.
“The CNews columnists have not spared criticism of the state’s measures towards Trappes, that is a fact,” the prefect of the Yvelines department told this newspaper, Le Parisien. He therefore decided to contact the French billionaire, with whom he has had a business relationship for almost 30 years. The two men have notably worked together on the issue of the Bolloré Group’s electric bus factories in Ergué-Gabéric when Jean-Jacques Brot worked for the Finistère prefecture. “I convinced Vincent Bolloré that the community must be treated in an equitable way,” he told the Parisien newspaper.
This conversation is said to have given rise to the idea of broadcasting the Christmas Mass in the church of Saint-Georges in Trappes. The prefect, who is himself a practising Catholic, assures that there is “a true popular faith” in this parish. Among the 400 or so people attending the service, “there are very different people, some have no identity papers, others are very well off and the mix works very well,” assures Father Étienne Guillet.