As French paper ends strike, new editor to find 'empty newsroom' (updated)
01/08/2023 14:10
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By Michel Rose
PARIS, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Journalists at France's
flagship Sunday newspaper, Le Journal du Dimanche, agreed with
owner Lagardere LAGA.PA on Tuesday to end a five-week strike
in protest against the nomination of a new editor-in-chef who
had worked for a far-right magazine.
Staff had been on strike since late June to protest the
nomination of Geoffroy Lejeune, the former head of magazine
Valeurs Actuelles, which has courted controversy with
anti-immigrant covers and was fined for racist insult in 2022.
His nomination had raised concerns in France about the
expansion of an increasingly strident right-wing media empire
under the control of French billionaire Vincent Bollore, which
has drawn comparisons with U.S. TV channel, Fox News.
Press freedom groups and the French government have voiced
reservations over Lejeune's appointment, with President Emmanuel
Macron's culture minister, Rima Abdul Malak, saying she was
alarmed by the risk to French "values."
Both Lagardere, which is being taken over by Bollore, and
the journalists' association, confirmed a deal had been agreed
to end the strike, which has prevented the newspaper from
hitting the newsstands for six consecutive weekends.
However, journalists for the paper, a mainstay of the French
media landscape renowned for its political coverage, said the
deal to end the strike came as it became clear Lagardere would
proceed to appoint Lejeune, adding that the move would prompt
many reporters to leave.
"If we managed to throw the spotlight on the independence of
newsrooms, we did not win against our shareholder," the
journalists association said in a statement. "Today, Geoffroy
Lejeune takes office. He will find an empty newsroom."
Lagardere said in a statement it welcomed the deal and that
the newspaper would be back in newsstands from mid-August.
The strike at Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) and the agreement
over a severance package for reporters who have decided to leave
follow a pattern at other media outlets acquired by Bollore over
the past years.
The group now owns 24-hour news channel CNews, which was
rebranded and most of its staff replaced after a long strike,
and has taken a conservative turn since. Anti-immigration and
hardline law-and-order comments made by some of its talk show
hosts regularly inflame social media users.
(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Layli Foroudi;
Editing by Louise Heavens and Bernadette Baum)
((Layli.Foroudi@thomsonreuters.com;))