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The necessary criticism of the so-called connivance between the press and political power raises the issue of the necessity of a real media counter-power. However, this requirement is not easily formulated in France. On the one hand, it has been historically difficult to envisage freedom of expression as being totally exterior to political power (including legislative power). On the other hand, France has not “completed” the reporting revolution which occurred in the 19th century. Thus, the key figure of the counter-power, i.e. the reporter, is not at the center of the journalistic practice in France as it is in the Anglo-Saxon democracies.