Committed to promoting community-minded television, Groupe M6 is pursuing its policy of partnerships to raise people’s awareness of the issues of solidarity and support for society’s most disadvantaged. The group decided to take on this new project focussing on prison life for several reasons. First of all, television, allowed in prison cells since 1985, is a window on the world for inmates. The M6 channel and Groupe M6 can lend their expertise in this area. Incarceration is a subject in society deserving of people’s attention as well as funding. Beyond the punitive and rehabilitative dimension, which is handled by prison administration, prison also serves as a time of reflection and rebuilding for the inmate.
“Consideration, help with psychological rebuilding, project planning, all of this can help someone find their place in society, even after being cut off from it for a long time. Let’s work so that inmates who leave prison never have to return. I am delighted that the Fondation M6 has chosen this noble and courageous cause that gets little media coverage: helping the prison population to successfully rehabilitate,” says Mélissa Theuriau, presenter of the newsmagazine Zone Interdite and a supporter of the new foundation.
The Fondation M6 aims to support audiovisual projects proposed to inmates and to help with the dynamics of rehabilitation initiated by the Ministry of Justice. For example, the foundation will provide training in the audiovisual trades (equipping and running the internal video channel, training in sound, video and the control room, writing and directing workshops) and it will also expand activities to include cultural entertainment and sports (shows, concerts, conferences and debates, multimedia library).
Groupe M6 is working with the prison administration, its partners, associations, the detainees themselves and its own staff in this responsibly-minded and community-oriented endeavour. The Fondation M6 has a budget of EUR 2.5 million to be spent over a five-year period and already has its own website: www.fondationm6.fr. Chris Morette is in charge of the foundation, which has been placed under the responsibility of Yann de Kersauson, Deputy Director of the communications department of Groupe M6.
