Les Surligneurs

During the reported period, Les Surligneurs had to cover extensively the European elections, the French legislative elections, but also the Olympic and Paralympic games. It did so by significantly increasing its number of articles per month (from 15/month in 2023 to 80/month this year), and by diversifying its activity through the recruitment of journalists dedicated to fact-checking (beyond its usual legal-checking, which remain its core activity). Les Surligneurs also experimented new formats, such as video or illustrated legal-checks on Instagram to reach another audience.

Les Surligneurs participated to the Elections24Check project, a cross-country collaboration aimed at detecting and debunking European electoral disinformation across the EU between the European Fact Checking Standards Network and its participating member organisations. The common database gathered over 3000 articles, accessible to the general public, researchers and plaforms. Les Surligneurs’ members participated in various auditions, events and publications surrounding disinformation and fact-checking. That includes: (i) an EDMO report on the implementation of the Code of Practice, (ii) the creation of various contents and programs on EU election disinformation, legal checking and platform regulation (a full course at Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a podcast, etc.), (iii) two webinars held by law professors on the French elections, (iv) Vincent Couronne’s regular participation to the leading TV programme of the French channel “Public Sénat”, (v) Guillaume Baticle’s participation to the Infox sur Seine event, (vi) a research program in Beyrouth on AI assisted legal-checking,(vii) Vincent Couronne’s audition by the French Senate investigation committee on foreign interferences, and (viii) Vincent Couronne being a member of the Governance Body and Treasurer of the EFCSN and being elected Secretary General of the Spiil (union of independent press) which concluded a partnership agreement with the Association Pour l’Éducation aux Médias (APEM) in order to give access to more than 200 media outlets in France to MIL trainings and resources. Vincent Couronne is also a member of the strategic committee of the CLEMI in France (Centres Locaux pour l’Éducation aux Médias). At last (ix), Les Surligneurs’ experts published in November 2024 a comparative report on public policies against disinformation (including media literacy) in French-speaking countries in the world, with a specific focus on elections.

Les Surligneurs is now pursuing its growth by recruiting new collaborators.