Cash Investigation

Cash investigation
Original broadcast logo
Genre	Newsmagazine
Presented by	Élise Lucet
Narrated by	Jean-Pierre Canet
Theme music composer	Raphaël Elig
Original language(s)	French
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	23
Production
Producer(s)	Luc Hermann, fr
Editor(s)	2012–2013 Élise Lucet, Laurent Richard, Jean-Pierre Canet 2012–2013 Élise Lucet, Jean-Pierre Canet 2012–2013 Élise Lucet, Benoît Bringer 2012–2013 Élise Lucet,Laurent Richard, Jean-Pierre Canet 2012–2013 Élise Lucet, Jean-Pierre Canet 2012–2013 Élise Lucet, Benoît Bringer.
Running time	90 minutes (seasons 1 & 2) 120 minutes starting season 3)
Production company(s)	Premières Lignes
Release
Original network	France 2
Picture format	16/9
Audio format	Stereophonic sound
External links
Production website

This article is a partial translation of the Cash investigation article on the French Wikipedia. The image and some of the information it contains were drawn from there.

Cash Investigation is a French television news show. It produces investigative reports in the financial and business space. The investigations cover subjects such as greenwashing, neuromarketing and child labor. They also take on the diversion of public funds, tax evasion, lobbyist influence, conflicts of interest and information manipulation by spin doctors.

Put out by the Premières Lignes (Front Lines) production group, Luc Hermann and veteran journalist Paul Moreira, the broadcast operates in the tradition of such investigation news shows as 60 Minutes, Panorama, Frontline and fr (Inquiry).

Premières Lignes Prizes

• 2016 International Current Affairs and Social Documentary Film Festival 2016 - Scam prize for investigation
• 2015 Press’Tival - Gilles Jacquier Grand Prize - for The unspeakable secrets of our telephones

Prix de l'investigation DIG Awards

• 2015 DIG Awards - Prize for European Investigation
• 2015 Data Journalism Awards - top prize for LuxLeaks (ICIJ and Edouard Perrin of Cash Investigation)
• 2015 non-profit Anticor's Prize for Ethics
• 2014 Press International - Grand Prize
• 2014 Ilaria Alpi Prize for international investigation
• 2014 Best Magazine Les Lauriers de l’Audiovisuel (Audiovisual Laurels)
• 2013 Le Parisien - Best Magazine Star
• 2013 Media Grand Prize—CB News
• 2012 European Louise Weiss European prize, decryption category

Broadcasts

Each episode of season 1 (in 2012) also contained, in its second half, a portrait of a whistleblower.

When the broadcast faced cancellation, viewers organized an online petition demanding its reinstatement. The show returned in June 2013.

Season 2 had five episodes. The report on tax evasion, broadcast in primetime following the Cahuzac scandal, was a critical and audience success.

In season 3 the show broadcast regularly in primetime on Tuesday evenings.

In July 2015, Premières Lignes put the program's broadcasts online on YouTube.

In season 3, the team for the first time produced an investigation specifically designed for the internet. Broadcast on Francetvinfo.fr, Ces entreprises qui vendent des systèmes de sécurité aux pires dictatures de la planète (These organizations that sell security systems to the worst dictatorships on the planet) completed the investigation outlined on the Business de la peur (The Business of Fear), broadcast of September 21, 2015.

France 2 ordered a fourth season from Premières Lignes, with the first numbers due to be broadcast in 2016.

Season 1 (2012)

Number	Date	Title	Director	Subject, comments
1	May 18, 2012	« Toxic fringues » ("Toxic Togs")	Marie Maurice	Low cost clothing, (Zara, Inditex) Globalization Child labor Portrait: Erin Brockovich.
2	June 1, 2012	« La mort programmée de nos appareils » (The Programmed Death of our Devices)	Anna Salzberg Wandrille Lanos	Programmed obsolescence Salt Portrait: researcher Pierre Mèneton.
3	June 8, 2012	« La finance folle » (Insane Finance)	Irène Bénéfice Olivier Toscer	High-frequency trading Poly Implant Prothèse breast implants, with Richard Abs.
4	June 15, 2012	« Gavés de sucre » ("Gorged on Sugar")	Edouard Perrin Jean-Baptiste Renaud	The sugar industry in France Portrait: Pablo Fajardo.
5	May 11, 2012	« Paradis fiscaux: les petits secrets des grandes entreprises » (Tax havens: The Little Secrets of Big Business)	Edouard Perrin	Tax evasion Portrait: The Yes Men.
6	May 4, 2012	« Marketing vert : le grand maquillage »	Jean-Pierre Canet Martin Boudot	Greenwashing World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Areva Portrait: Jeffrey Wigand.
7	April 27, 2012	« Les vendeurs de maladies » (The Sellers of Illness)	Laurent Richard Wandrille Lanos	Pharmaceutical industry Portrait: Shanti Senthikuma.
8	May 25, 2012	« Neuromarketing : votre cerveau les intéresse » (Neuromarketing: Your Brain Interests Them)	Benoît Bringer	Neuromarketing, SNCF, L'Oréal, plus the merchandizing of water (with Jean-Luc Touly).

Season 2 (2013)

Number	Date	Time	Title	Director	Subject, comment	Audience	Audience share
1	Tuesday June 11, 2013	20h45	« Le scandale de l'évasion fiscale : révélations sur les milliards qui nous manquent » ("The scandal of Tax Evasion: Revelations on the Billions We Are Missing")	Valentine Oberti, Wandrille Lanos and Edouard Perrin	Taxes Tax evasion	3.6 million	14.7%
2	Wednesday September 11, 2013	22h15	« Foot business : enquête sur une omerta » ("Foot business: Investigation into a Code of Silence")	Martin Boudot	Economics of soccer	1.4 million	9.7%
3	Wednesday September 18, 2013	22h30	« Les récoltes de la honte » (The Harvests of Shame")	Wandrille Lanos	Grande distribution, Corruption, Human trafficking	1.3 million	9.7%
4	Wednesday September 25, 2013	22h35	« Diesel : la dangereuse exception française » ("Diesel, the Dangerous French Exception")	Edouard Perrin	Diesel, Filtre à particules, Health	1.07 million	9.5%
5	Wednesday October 2, 2013	22h35	« Formation professionnelle, le grand détournement » ("Professional Training, the Big Detour")	Benoît Bringer	Continuing education, financement des syndicats	1.4 million	12.1%

Season 3 (2014)

Number	Date	Time	Title	Director	Subject, comment	Audience	Audience Share
1	Tuesday October 7, 2014	20h50	« Industrie du tabac : la grande manipulation »	Laurent Richard	European Parliament Cigarettes Lobbying French government	2.5 million	10%
2	Tuesday November 4, 2014	20h50	« Les secrets inavouables de nos téléphones portables »	Martin Boudot with Jules Giraudat	Smartphone Nokia Apple Samsung Huawei China	3.6 million	14.7%
3	Tuesday March 3, 2015	20h50	« Quand les actionnaires s'en prennent à vos emplois »	Edouard Perrin	Sanofi Samsonite (Bain Capital) Pages-Jaunes	3.2 million

Season 4 (2015)

Number	Date	Time	Title	Director	Subject, comment	Audience	Audience share
4	Monday September 7, 2015	23h05	« Mon président est en voyage d'affaires »	Laurent Richard	French foreign policy, Diplomacy, Human rights	1,100,000	15.1 %
5	Monday September 14, 2015	23h05	« Santé: la loi du marché »	Sylvain Louvet	Fee for service, Prescriptions, Sécurité sociale, Pharmaceutical industry, Pharmaceutical lobby	1,100,000	13.7 %
6	Monday September 25, 2015	23h05	« Le business de la peur »	Jean-Pierre Canet	National security, biometric authentication, Identity theft, piratage, video surveillance, PARAFES	1,084,000	13.5 %
7	October 6, 2015	20h55	« Marketing : les stratégies secrètes »	Wandrille Lanos	Sale of personal data (collected through telemarketing, trace numérique, loyalty cards), ciblage. iPhone. Danone.	2,866,000	12.2 %

Season 4 Episodes

Cash Investigation episodes are available online for a month after broadcast at pluzz.fr

"When the European Union created the carbon quota system 10years ago they intended to give heavy industry incentives for carbon emissions reductions. Today the system is completely off track and big CO<sup2</sup emitters profit. You will see that emitting CO2 can be very lucratve for large companies. One large French organization is taking in millions of euros this way every year."

Credits

2

Controversies

• In June 2012 the World Wildlife Fund sued France 2 to prevent broadcast of an interview of the NGO's management. The courts ruled in favor of France 2.
• On October 2, 2013, the program revealed that the French government had fined the training arm of Jardiland 3.2 million euros in September 2012. The issue was fraudulent transactions concerning hundreds of false training certificates issued between 2007 and 2011. The certificates allowed them to illegally receive subsidies from professional training organizations.Jardiland announced it would bring a defamation suit against France Télévisions, publicly accusing the Cash investigation report of presenting false information. In April 2015 more than a year later, Jardiland withdrew its suit.
• In 2015, Rachida Dati criticized the broadcast for the questions it raised about a possible link between Rachida Dati and the Engie corporation (formerly GDF-Suez).
• In 2015, Élise Lucet took part in a demonstration by the collective named "Informer n’est pas un délit" (Informing is not a crime) against a proposed French law defining trade secrets an amendment to the fr (Law for growth, activity and equality of economic opportunity), known as the "Loi Macron". She opposed the measure because it would hamper the production of broadcasts like Cash investigation. A book was scheduled for publication in 2015
• After the February 2, 2016 broadcast of Produits chimiques, nos enfants en danger (Chemical products, our children in danger), the Association française pour l'information scientifique (AFIS) (French Association for Scientific Information) issued a press release claiming that the documentary misled viewers. It cited the transformation of the summary of the European Food Safety Authority, which said: "Plus de 97 % des aliments contiennent des résidus de pesticides dans les limites légales dont 54.6% ne contiennent aucun résidu détectable" (More than 97% of foods contain pesticide residues within legal limits; 54.6 of these contain no detectable trace), into "Plus de 97 % des aliments contiennent des résidus de pesticides" (More than 97% of foods contain pesticide residues). Several weeks later AFIS returned to the subject, in a more detailed article, Comment les téléspectateurs ont été abusés par 'Cash Investigation'. The disputed number is cited once at the beginning of the episode.