The culture and education committee of the National Assembly has decided that all 577 deputies will spend the next three years watching CNews live from the floor of the chamber, seated in alphabetical order, with no breaks for lunch.
The decision follows a petition that gathered more than one million signatures. Committee members voted by 28 to 25 to refer the matter back to themselves for a second, identical hearing, which will be held in the same room under the same chairman. Officials said the rule that a petition must be debated before the full house was suspended for the duration of the hearing, and that the suspension will itself be debated by a sub-committee formed for that purpose.
Assembly staff have been instructed to install a second screen above the main one so that deputies can read the captions while the presenters speak. The canteen has begun stocking only dry biscuits, and the chamber's cloakroom has been converted into a rest area with fourteen reclining chairs, each one labelled with the name of a deputy who has agreed to occupy it.
A spokesperson for the committee said: "We have listened to the petitioners. We have decided that listening must now continue in the hemicycle, for as long as it takes, and that the word 'continue' will be defined by the committee at its next meeting."