Martin Bouygues: the announcement of his death was a mistake – Press Centre

Martin Bouygues: the announcement of his death was a mistake – Press Centre

TF1 and Bouygues directions denied Saturday the death of the industrial
Martin Bouygues, announced by mistake by Agence France-Presse.

V RGENT: industrialist Martin Bouygues died . This is the message sent Saturday at 2:47 p.m. by Agence France-Presse (AFP) to all subscribers, French and foreign media. Like wildfire, the information was relayed immediately of course … and belied by TF1. “The Bouygues Group formally denies the death of its CEO and regrets that such a rumor could spread” , said the Bouygues group in a statement.

AFP

This apology

“It is well. But it is quite scared of this announcement. We do not explain us “, said for his part Nayl Catherine, director of information at TF1, a subsidiary of Bouygues group.
AFP canceled the series of dispatches and direction immediately apologized.
“We take this incident very seriously and are conducting a survey in writing to understand how such a mistake could have been committed” , said the Director Information, Michele Léridon.
“We extend our apologies to Martin Bouygues, his relatives, his group and to all our customers,” , a-t -she said. The CEO of AFP Emmanuel Hoog has also apologized to Martin Bouygues and lamented on Twitter “this unacceptable mistake” .
This erroneous announcement sparked Saturday an important emotion on social networks and more media questioned the reasons for such an error.
Based on a first alert obtained by a journalist o f the agency, AFP had tried to obtain confirmations. The erroneous information was then broadcast on the basis of a misunderstanding with a local councilor.
But the leadership of the AFP notes that beyond this misunderstanding, it is a series of failures that are the cause of the error.
“The basic editorial rules in this type of situation and the validation procedures will be recalled” , said Michele Léridon. Adding: “The reputation of the agency is first based on its reliability. We, in everyday life, everything to it is not tainted by such malfunctions. “

Martin Bouygues also owns a residence in Vernou-en-Sologne.