2023-08-06 07:20:00
C’is a new era that is dawning for the Sunday newspaper. After a historic forty-day strike and departures that promise to be massive, the JDD Geoffroy Lejeune’s version, a journalist marked on the far right, was published on the night of Saturday August 5 to Sunday August 6. A surprise first edition, just five days following his arrival at the head of the editorial staff of the weekly.
A surprise, too, because the first issue had been announced for mid-August. Available shortly following midnight on the newspaper’s platform, this issue has 32 pages, twenty less than the last edition. The front page is devoted to insecurity and justice following the death of a 15-year-old boy stabbed to death in Eure on July 22.
Readers “will find the main markers of this newspaper and, at the same time, it is perfectly up to date”, estimated the new editorial director during his first public intervention. “He is very committed, he defends good causes […] It is a number that will perhaps not mark the history of France but at least the history of the press”, continued Geoffroy Lejeune on Europe 1 (radio of the Lagardère group, like the JDD).
Praud, Vendroux, Naulleau…
This edition also includes an interview with Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, the new Secretary of State for the City. She is the first member of government to grant an interview to the JDD Lejeune version and defends his choice to express himself in the weekly through “pluralism”.
With a decimated editorial staff, this issue was produced mainly by outside journalists, with few journalists already present before the change of course. It includes the signatures of Charlotte d’Ornellas and Raphaël Stainville (former Current valueslike Geoffroy Lejeune), Pascal Praud, journalist for Europe 1 and CNews, Jacques Vendroux, for sport, or even Éric Naulleau (ex-debating companion of Éric Zemmour, whom Lejeune supported in the presidential election) .
The website, which has been shut down since Thursday June 22, also resumed service this week and is powered by the 6Médias press agency.
The situation at JDD revived the debate on the concentration of the media in the hands of a few large private groups and the legislation governing their operation. Conditioning of aid to the press, strengthening of the power of editorial staff vis-à-vis shareholders: several avenues have been mentioned, but none has so far achieved consensus.
‘Every reason to worry’
In an interview at West France, Saturday, the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak believes that “there is every reason to worry in view of what had happened in Current values who was sentenced for incitement to racial hatred. While recalling that “the opinion press has the right to exist in France, this is part of the pluralism of the press, so we can neither constrain the freedom of the press, nor constrain the freedom of enterprise”.
The subject will be on the menu in September of the Estates General of Information announced by the Élysée.
Furthermore, according to information from MarianneRodolphe Saadé, boss of the shipowner CMA CGM and owner of the Marseille daily Provenceof the business site La Tribune and the Brut video platform, is working to launch a new national general-interest daily distributed at weekends at the end of the year, like the JDD. Asked by AFP, the group declined to comment.
A “JDD” with Bollo sauce?
On Tuesday, an agreement was reached between the strikers and the management of the Lagardère group, owner of the JDD, ending the historic editorial strike, which had refused since June 22 to be led by Geoffroy Lejeune. This agreement provided for a gradual resumption of activity as well as the establishment of support conditions for journalists who wish to leave the editorial office. Many of them had let it be known that they would not stay.
READ ALSOGeoffroy Lejeune at the “JDD”: eight former directors support the strikersGeoffroy Lejeune, 34, sparked several controversies, especially when the weekly Current valuesthen under his direction, was sentenced to a suspended fine of 1,000 euros for public insult of a racist nature towards LFI deputy Danièle Obono, who had been portrayed as a slave.
Even if Arnaud Lagardère, the boss of the group, denies it, many observers see in this appointment the hand of billionaire Vincent Bolloré. Vivendi, Vincent Bolloré’s group owning Canal+ and its channels (including CNews and C8), is in fact in the process of absorbing Lagardère, owner of the JDDof Paris Match and Europe 1, following a successful takeover bid.
This tycoon with reputedly very conservative opinions has built a media empire, triggering strikes and departures in the newsrooms over the course of his acquisitions: takeover of the Canal+ group, transformation of iTélé into CNews, takeover in 2021 of Prisma Media, the first group magazine press in France.
The left accuses Macronie, the right congratulates Lejeune
Several left-wing officials have accused Macron of “accelerating the trivialization” of the JDD, denouncing the interview granted by Sabrina Agresti-Roubache. “The Macron government endorses the coup de force of the JDD “, commented on X (ex-Twitter) the first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure. “Their conception of the Republican arc is in line with their interests. They have destroyed its meaning. »
“A Macronist minister! After having shone by his silence on the takeover of the JDD by the extreme right, the macronie accelerates its trivialization. Scandalous! “, abounded Manon Aubry, rebellious MEP.
Sarah Kerrich-Bernard, national secretary of the Socialist Party, denounced the tone of the new formula: “penal populism which recovers the pain of the victims […]. Justice is peace, not hate. This newspaper has become what it was to become: a rag”.
“The far right is an invasive species, it settles on the land of others, conquers them, threatens biodiversity”, commented the ecologist deputy Sandrine Rousseau.
On the other side of the political spectrum, several voices from the National Rally welcomed this publication. “Good luck to Geoffroy Lejeune and his new team to wake up the JDD “wrote RN MEP Thierry Mariani. “It was time for a newspaper to dare to say it,” commented his colleague Gilbert Collard, while the front page is devoted to insecurity following the death of a 15-year-old boy, stabbed to death at the end of July. in the Eure.
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