Be
soft on Juncker, YouTube told interviewer
By Eric Maurice
BRUSSELS, Today,
09:29
A
French YouTuber has claimed she was told by YouTube not to ask
difficult questions to European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker in a
broadcast event last week.
Laetitia Birbes said
she was threatened that her YouTube career would be over if she did
not steer clear of issues like lobbying and tax avoidance.
Laetitia - her
blogger name - was chosen by YouTube as one of three "YouTube
stars" to interview Juncker, along with Poland's Lukasz Jakobiak
and Germany's Jonas Ems.
The 32-year old
participated last Thursday (15 September) in a programme called Ask
Juncker organised by YouTube, a US video-sharing website, Euronews TV
channel and the commission itself, which was broadcast live on
internet and TV.
In her 15-minute
talk with Juncker, in a kitchen setting, she asked the commission
president questions about glyphosate chemical products, about his
predecessor Jose Manuel Barroso's decision to join Goldman Sachs, and
about his will to fight tax evasion in Europe.
"Entrust
someone who was finance minister for 18 years in Europe's biggest tax
haven with the mission to fight tax evasion, isn't it like naming a
bank robber as police chief?" she asked Juncker, referring to
his past job in Luxembourg.
"It's often
said that robbers and poachers are the best members of police
services," Juncker quipped in reply, before adding that the
question was "superficial" and showed "French
condescension" towards his country.
In a video posted on
Sunday, Laetitia said she was pressured by YouTube not to ask the
questions.
She included a
footage of her with a YouTube representative in which she seems to be
threatened not to do so.
"That's already
a hyper difficult question for Mr Juncker to answer, you talk about
company lobbying. At one time, you are not going to antagonise the
European Commission and YouTube, and all the people who believe in
you," the YouTube representative told her.
Then he added:
"Well, unless you don't intend to last long on YouTube."
Birbes says in her
video: "YouTube had promised I could ask all the questions I
wanted. But then, as we went along, I realised there were important
questions that didn't go well.
"At first I
realised that YouTube was trying to gently influence me. Then it went
further and I felt threatened."
In the footage, the
YouTube employee can be heard saying they would have to refer to
"Natasha", possibly referring to a Juncker aide called
Natasha Bertaud, and that "there is a risk of red flag" to
the questions.
"I realised
they expected me to ask super smooth questions and that the goal of
all that what to make a super big advertisement for Juncker,"
Beribes says.
"They suggested
me to ask Juncker 'What is happiness?' to talk about his Nokia 3310
telephone and his dog Plato," the YouTuber also the French Rue89
website.
In the interviews by
the two other YouTubers, Juncker was asked questions like "Can
you give us three good reasons why young people need the EU?"
and "what is the most common criticism against you and how do
you react to that?" and "Why is Europe not in a good
shape?"
In a statement to
Rue89, YouTube said that the man filmed with Birbes just "encouraged
her to favour respect to confrontation".
"As the video
of the interview proves, she had the opportunity to ask all the
questions she had prepared," the firm said.
According to Birbes,
she was offered a contract by YouTube the day after the interview,
but she said she would not sign it because she wanted to stay
independent.
She runs a blog and
a YouTube channel called Le Corps, la Maison, l'Esprit (Body, House,
Spirit), about lifestyle and personal well-being.
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