COPY LINK

POLITICS

French newspaper accused of ‘censorship’ for pulling article on Macron

Leading French daily Le Monde on Friday faced accusations of censorship after it deleted an opinion piece that critically analysed President Emmanuel Macron's stance on Algeria, although the newspaper insisted it had contained an error of interpretation.

Published: 3 September 2022 14:43 CEST

The printing house of Riccobono group in Tremblay-en-France, near Paris, where the French daily newspaper Le Monde is printed. Photo by Martin BUREAU / AFP

Le Monde issued a hugely unusual personal apology to Macron over the article, written by the researcher Paul Max Morin after the president made a sensitive visit to the former French colony late last month.

In his article, Morin argued that a comment made by Macron in Algeria about a “love story that has its tragic element” glorified the colonial past and represented a step back from his previous attempts for a more modern attitude towards the history of France in the North African country.

“Reducing colonisation in Algeria to a ‘love story’ is the culmination of Macron’s shift to the right on the memory question,” Morin argued in the piece. But Le Monde said that it had later deleted the piece as Morin had misinterpreted the quote.

“While it could be subject to different interpretations, the phrase ‘a love story that has its tragic element’ used by Mr Macron did not specifically refer to colonisation — as was written in the piece — but the long history of relations between France and Algeria,” it said.

“Le Monde apologises to its readers as well as the president of the Republic,” it added.

“Inexplicable and inexcusable’

But the move was followed by a torrent of criticism, especially from figures on the left.

“An op-ed was pulled for a quote Macron made which he did not like,” tweeted far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon. “It is a new low in the collapse of a newspaper that was once a point of reference.”

“Staggering censorship,” added Edwy Plenel, a former editor-in-chief of Le Monde who went on to found the investigative website Mediapart.

Morin himself told the Liberation daily that “pulling a piece is an abnormal practice and incomprehensible.”

“Inexplicable and inexcusable censorship by Le Monde,” tweeted the leading French economist Thomas Piketty. “We can disagree with the piece, but not delete it because it displeases the Elysee.”

There was no immediate comment from Macron’s office.

The controversy is doubly sensitive given it was Le Monde which in October 2021 quoted closed-door comments by Macron describing Algeria’s system as “politico-military” that prompted a new crisis in relations with Algiers.

“When we make mistakes that are our fault, it’s normal to apologise to people who may have been offended, starting with our readers,” the director of Le Monde, Jerome Fenoglio, told AFP.

Macron in his speeches portrays himself as a champion of the free press but there have been episodes in the past that, according to critics, reveal a more thin-skinned attitude.

In November 2020, the Financial Times pulled a piece that was bitterly critical of France’s policy in the fight against Islamist extremism. Macron followed up with a letter to the paper bitterly attacking the article.

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.