The Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) is a French institution, created in 1989, whose role is to regulate the various electronic media in France, such as radio and television, including through eventual censorship

Censorship

thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

. For example, it was the CSA that asked the French government to forbid Al-Manar TV in 2005 because of charges of hate speech

Hate speech

Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic....

; it also claimed that MED TV

MED TV

MED TV is an International Kurdish satellite TV station with studios in London, England and Denderleeuw, Belgium. MED TV broadcast programs mainly in six languages, Kurdish , Zaza, English, Arabic, Assyrian and Turkish...

 was close to the Kurdish

Kurds in Turkey

Ethnic Kurds compose a significant portion of the population in Turkey . Unlike the Turks, the Kurds speak an Indo-European language...

 PKK, on grounds not of "evidences" but of "concording elements" . The creation of the CSA was a measure found in the Socialist Party

Socialist Party (France)

The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in France and the largest party of the French centre-left. It is one of the two major contemporary political parties in France, along with the center-right Union for a Popular Movement...

's electoral program of 1981, called 110 Propositions for France

110 Propositions for France

110 Propositions for France was the name of the Socialist Party's program for the 1981 presidential election during which the Socialist Party's candidate, François Mitterrand, was elected by 51.76% of the people...

.

The CSA replaced the Commission Nationale de la Communication et des Libertés

National Commission for Communication and Liberties

The National Commission for Communication and Liberties was a TV and radio regulatory body set up in France in 1986 as the successor to the Haute Autorité de la communication audiovisuelle, and dissolved in 1989 to be followed by the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel....

 (CNCL), which itself replaced the Haute Autorité de la Communication Audiovisuelle, created in 1982 to supervise the attribution of radio frequencies to the private radio sector, which was judged better than allowing the anarchic creation of the radios libres

Pirate radio in France

An introduction to the subject of Pirate Radio can be found under that heading.-France :In 1955, in order to circumvent the prohibition of commercial broadcasting that had been imposed in France after the Second World War, the French-language Europe 1 station was first established in the Saarland,...

 ("free radios"), mainly composed of amateurs and NGOs.

Current members

(as of January 2011)

• Michel Boyon (president)
• Alain Méar 
• Rachid Arhab
  Rachid Arhab
  Rachid Arhab is a French journalist, current member of the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel .-Early life:...
  
   
• Françoise Laborde
  Françoise Laborde
  Françoise Laborde is a member of the Senate of France, representing the Haute Garonne departement. She is a member of the Radical Party of the Left.-External links:*...
  
   
• Christine Kelly 
• Emmanuel Gabla 
• Francine Mariani-Ducray 
• Nicolas About
  Nicolas About
  Nicolas About is a French politician from the centrist MoDem. he is a member of the French Senate and President of the Centrist Union group. About was the mayor of Montigny-le-Bretonneux from 1977 to 2004. He was elected senator of Yvelines on September 24, 1995, and reelected on September 26,...
  
   
• Patrice Gélinet

External links

• Official web site of the CSA